



■;':;{- 



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Class 

Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Highways and Byways of Florida 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




Il3t^ 



'^!A^^%.< 



On an East Coast beach 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 

OF 

FLORIDA 



HUMAN INTEREST 
INFORMATION FOR 
TRAVELLERS IN FLORIDA; 
AND FOR THOSE OTHER 
TRAVELLERS WHO ARE 
KEPT AT HOME BY CHANCE 
OR NECESSITY, BUT WHO 
JOURNEY FAR AND WIDE 
ON THE WINGS OF FANCY 



WRITTEN BY 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 

FULLY ILLUSTRATED 



Published by THE M ACM ILL AN COMPANY 
New York McMviii 

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, 1918 ,J6(^ 

by the Macmillan Covipany. 



Set up and electrotyped 
Published December, 1918. 



AMERICAN 
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 



FLORIDA 



DtC -7 1918 



©CI.A50B982 



A I loi I 



Introductory Note 



This book is an attempt to include in readable form 
all the human interest information concerning Florida 
that the space will permit. I have sought for what is 
characteristic and significant in nature and in history, 
in the observations of travelers present and past, in 
commercial and industrial enterprise on land and sea, 
and for that which is illuminating and entertaining in 
literature, legend, and humor. 

It has been my custom to supply the Illustrations 
for my travel books with my own camera, and I had 
intended to make photographs for this Florida book 
as usual. But our part in the World War interfered 
with my plans. I walked out on a wharf at a Gulf port 
in quest of camera material and soon found myself ar- 
rested as a suspected German spy. For two days and 
a night I was behind prison bars. When I was released, 
the official prediction was that I would have further 
disagreeable experiences of the sort if I persisted in my 
purpose to make photographs, and I decided to gather 
the illustrations in other ways. 

Later the old saying that "Misfortunes never come 
singly" was corroborated when a fire at the engravers 
destroyed most of the pictures I had secured, and I had 
to collect material anew. 



vi Introductory Note 

I am grateful to those mentioned below for the illus- 
trations which appear opposite the pages listed: 

United States Forest Service, 97, no, 143, 173, 212, 213, 220, 221. 

United States Geological Survey, 100. 

Florida East Coast Railv^ay, 76, 81, 96, 132, 153, 164, 193. 

Seaboard Air Line Railway, Frontispiece, 16, 17, 49, 80, 140, 141, 165. 

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, 209. 

Agwi Steamship News, 48, 64, 65, 69, 99, 152, 208, 245. 

Charleston Chamber of Commerce, 244. 

A. D. Copeland, of Springfield, Mass., 68. 

W. J. Harris, 22, 26, 32, 33; from a very serviceable and well-illustrated 

copyrighted St. Augustine booklet. 
A. W. Dimock, 142, from Mr. Dimock's "Book of the Tarpon"; 172, from 

his "Florida Enchantments." 

Places and other features of Florida are often lent 
an additional attraction by their names. Many of 
these names have an Indian origin and are not only 
appropriate in their significance but strikingly melo- 
dious. Others smack of the pioneer period, or at least 
of a rude unconventionalism. Some supply almost 
excuse enough in themselves for inclusion in the text, 
and I regret that I did not find place in my chapters 
for such as the Sopchoppy River, a tributary of the 
Ochlockonee, and for Hogtown, where the first blood 
was shed in the Seminole War near Miccosukee. 

Clifton Johnson. 
Hadley, Mass. 



Contents 

Chapter Page 

I. Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto . i 

II. The Oldest City in the United States . 20 

III. The Stately St. Johns and the Beautiful 

Ocklawaha .... 

IV. The East Coast and the Indian River 
V. Key West and Its Sea-going Railway 

VI. Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 



VII. Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 121 



VIII. The West Coast . 

IX. The Seminoles 

X. The Everglades . 

XL Some Naturalist Visitors 

XII. The Weather and Other Characteristics 

XIII. Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 

XIV. Birds and Beasts 
XV. Two Charming Cities 

Index ..... 



SO 

72 

89 
103 



135 
148 
161 
176 
196 
212 
227 
242 
261 



Illustrations 



On an East Coast Beach 



Atlantic Surf on the Florida Coast . 

A Florida Jungle .... 

The Cathedral Completed in 1797 

Ancient Spanish Gateway 

The Arch in Old Fort Marion . 

Ruin of a Spanish Fort at Matanzas Inlet 

One of the Narrow Streets 

A St. Augustine Monument 

February on the Beach, Anastasia Island 

Pablo Beach Palmettos and Sand Dunes 

A Quiet Nook on the Borders of the St. Johns River 

Getting the Trotter Ready 

Voyaging on the Ocklawaha 

A Cracker's Home 

Beside the Halifax River at New Smyrna 

An Off-look on the Indian River 

Spanish Bayonets 

At Palm Beach on the Shore of Lake Worth 

One of the Viaducts of the Seagoing Railway 

A Remarkable Wild Fig Tree at Key West 

Navigating a Sponge Boat 

A Street in Key West .... 

On Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas . 

Young Mangroves Growing in a Shoal 



Frontispiece 
Facing Page 
16 



17 

22 

23 
26 
27 
32 

33 
48 

49 
64 

65 
68 

69 
76 

77 
80 
81 
96 

97 
98 

99 
100 

lOI 



Illustrations 



Docks at Pensacola 

Washing in the Yard 

Woodland in Northwestern Florida near Rocky 

A Drink from the Suwannee 

Lake Parker near Lakeland 

Picking Oranges .... 

A Phosphate Mine .... 

Ready to Start for Market 

A Kissimmee Valley Prairie 

A Rustic Well .... 

The Greek Sponge Fleet at Tarpon Springs 

A Bellair Bridge .... 

An Exciting Moment in Catching a Tarpon 

A Schoolhouse in Lee County . 

An Everglades Indian in his Dugout 

The Tomoka River near Ormond 

On the Shore of Lake Okechobee 

The Cotee River near Sarasota 

Canoeing in the Big Cypress . 

A Trapper's Home in the Everglades 

Deep Creek, a Tributary of the St. Johns 

A Florida Waterside 

An Ox-cart in Southern Florida 

A St. Petersburg Roadway 

Log-drawing in a Long-leaf Pine Forest 

Cutting a Gutter for Turpentine 

A Turpentine Orchard 

In the National Forest — a Fire Lookout 

Voyaging in the Everglades 

Cocoanut Palms on Key Biscayne 



Facing 



Bayou 



Page 

io8 
109 
no 
III 

128 
129 
130 

131 

132 

133 

140 

141 

142 

143 
152 

153 

164 
i6s 

172 

173 
192 

193 
208 
209 
212 
213 
220 
221 
232 
233 



Illustrations 



XI 



St. Michael's Church, Charleston 

Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor 

In a Charleston Alley 

A Home Entrance . 

A River Scene at Bonaventure 

The Atlantic Beach on Tybee Island 



Facing Page 
244 

245 
248 
249 
252 
253 



Highways and Byways of Florida 



Highways and Byways of 

Florida 

I 

PONCE DE LEON AND FERNANDO DE SOTO 

A MONG the sturdy New World explorers of the 
/% sixteenth century was Ponce de Leon, who, 
^ m as a companion of Columbus on his second 
voyage to the Western Hemisphere, proved himself to 
be a brave and gallant officer. Most of his time for 
many years afterward was spent In the New World, 
exploring, seeking gold, governing provinces, and 
parleying with the Indians, or fighting them. By the 
time he was fifty he had amassed wealth enough to 
make him Independent, and he returned to Spain. 

At length this bold mariner felt the Infirmities of age 
and the shadows of the decline of life hanging over him, 
and he willingly credited the tale that In the mysterious 
land beyond the sea there existed a spring whose 
waters could efface the marks of time and confer im- 
mortal youth on whoever bathed In It. The spring was 
said to be In a region which abounded in gold and all 
manner of desirable things. A considerable number of 
Cuban Indians had gone north from their Island in 



2 Highways and Byways of Florida 

search of this delectable country and its magic spring. 
They had never returned. No doubt they had suc- 
ceeded in their quest, and had preferred to remain in 
their rejuvenated state to enjoy the felicities of that 
land. 

So the gallant cavalier, Ponce de Leon, sailed from 
Spain to Porto Rico, where he fitted out three vessels 
and embarked in them to seek the fountain of youth. 
March 27, 1 5 13, he came within sight of Florida, and 
after hovering along the coast for a fortnight he went 
on shore a little south of the mouth of the St. Johns 
River. There a cross was planted, the royal banner 
was thrown to the breeze, and he took possession of the 
country for the Spanish crown. He called it Terra de 
Pascua Florida, Land of Easter Flowers. The name 
is supposed to refer in part to the time of his discovery, 
and in part to the abounding spring flowers that he 
saw and scented. 

For a month and a half after landing. Ponce de Leon 
engaged in an earnest search for the magic fountain. 
There are a score of springs in Florida which might 
impress an ignorant or credulous observer with the 
idea of supernatural virtues. But none of the springs 
in which the gallant cavalier bathed served his purpose, 
and he finally sailed away without having grown either 
younger or handsomer. However, though he failed to 
find the fountain of youth, he gave Florida its name 
and perpetuated his own by his romantic quest. 

In the year 1521 Ponce de Leon again voyaged to 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 3 

Florida. His fancy had been stirred by the brilliant 
exploits of Hernando Cortes in Mexico, and it seemed 
to him not unlikely that Florida might contain vast 
unknown regions of marvelous wealth in its bosom 
which would yield their discoverer fame and riches. 
About four hundred men accompanied him in two 
ships, and he carried along a number of sheep, cattle, 
and horses. He wanted to learn whether Florida was 
an island, as he was inclined to believe, and he planned 
to establish a settlement. It is probable that he ex- 
plored the west coast northward, and that stops were 
made at various places. But no sooner did he and his 
men begin to build habitations than they were assailed 
by the Indians with remarkable valor. Several of the 
Spaniards were slain, and Ponce de Leon was wounded 
in the thigh by a flint arrow. He was borne on board 
his ship, and the two vessels sailed to Cuba, where he 
died soon afterward. His body was carried to Porto 
Rico and entombed in one of the churches of the city 
of San Juan. The epitaph inscribed on his tomb was 
to the purport that "In this sepulcher rest the bones 
of a man who was a lion by name and still more by 
nature." 

In 1539 the conquest of the Florida peninsula was 
attempted by Fernando de Soto, who had taken a lead- 
ing part with Pizarro in conquering Peru. He went to 
Peru a needy adventurer, but his exploits had made him 
famous and rich. When it was known that he was to 
engage in this Florida enterprise, cavaliers, soldiers, 



4 Highways and Byways of Florida 

peasants, and artisans hastened to volunteer their 
services. Many sold or mortgaged their estates to buy 
an interest in the expedition. Some had seen with 
their own eyes the shiploads of gold and silver that had 
been brought from the New World, and no one seemed 
to doubt that success was assured. The seven large 
ships and three caravels that presently sailed away 
toward the setting sun made the finest fleet that ever 
left Spain to cross the Atlantic. 

De Soto went first to Cuba, where he added two 
more ships to his squadron, then turned northward, 
and on the 25th day of June sailed into Tampa Bay 
and dropped anchor. He had with him six hundred 
and twenty men, gallant and well equipped, eager in 
purpose, and audacious in hope. De Soto declared 
that the enterprise was undertaken for God alone. 
Certainly this devout marauder did not neglect the 
spiritual welfare of the Indians whom he had come to 
plunder; for besides fetters to bind them and blood- 
hounds to hunt them, he brought priests and monks 
to save their souls. 

After several days spent in exploring the waterways 
of the vicinity three hundred soldiers landed and raised 
the Spanish flag and royal arms on the beach. At 
nightfall, when supper had been eaten, the soldiers 
stretched themselves on the ground around the stand- 
ard of their king and slept. But just before the gray 
hour of dawn there burst from the silent black forest a 
tumult of cries and yells, leaping savage forms, and a 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 5 

flight of arrows. The Spaniards, overwhelmed and 
confused, ran in helpless terror down the beach and out 
into the water, whence their trumpets sent clamorous 
calls to the ships for aid. Barges quickly brought 
reinforcements, and the savages were driven back into 
the forest. 

The Indians made no further demonstration, and a 
few days later the Spaniards marched ten miles to a 
deserted native village on the site of the present city 
of Tampa. The village consisted of a single row of low 
wooden cabins, thatched with palmetto. On a mound 
at one end was the cabin of the chief, and opposite, on 
another mound, was a temple bearing the wooden 
effigy of a fowl. De Soto with his staff took possession 
of the chief's cabin, the officers established themselves 
in the other cabins, and the soldiers tore down the 
temple and combined the fragments with brush to 
make rude shelters for themselves. The ground was 
cleared of trees and shrubbery for the distance of a 
crossbow shot on every side, sentinels were posted, 
and horsemen were ordered to make regular rounds. 

Scouting squads captured a few straggling natives 
to serve the expedition for guides, but the captives were 
of little use without interpreters. Gradually, however, 
De Soto managed to understand from them that he 
was in the village of their chief, Hirrihigua, and that 
they had all taken refuge in the forest at the approach 
of the Spaniards. The captives were sent to the chief 
with friendly messages and presents, but he railed at 



6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

them for bringing him fair words and gifts from Chris- 
tians. He told them to bring him the Spaniards' heads 
instead. 

De Soto learned from his captives that the chief's 
enmity had its origin ten years back when a Spanish 
expedition led by Panfilo de Narvaez landed there. 
The relations of the strangers and the natives were at 
first friendly, but trouble soon developed because of the 
Spaniards' arrogance and treachery. The chief was 
seized, and vilely mutilated by cutting off his nose, and 
his old mother was thrown to the dogs and devoured 
by them before his eyes. A few years later a Spanish 
ship had sailed into the bay seeking tidings of Narvaez 
and his men, who had marched into the Florida forests 
and had not been heard from since. Hirrihigua divined 
the purpose of the voyagers, and he indicated by signs 
that Narvaez had left papers there to be given to Chris- 
tians who would come for them. In proof, old letters 
found in the Spanish camp, were tied to sticks and held 
up on the beach. The ship's people were suspicious 
and feared to trust themselves on shore. Then Hir- 
rihigua sent four of his warriors to remain on the vessel 
as hostages, whereupon four Spaniards paddled to land 
in the Indians' canoe. But it had barely touched 
ground when the four warriors sprang from the ship 
into the water, and swam away like fish. The four 
white men were dragged off in triumph to the forest. 
Three were tortured and killed, but the fourth was 
still dwelling among the savages. 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 7 

Two detachments of cavalry and crossbowmen were 
at once sent by De Soto in different directions with 
orders to spend a week, if necessary, searching for the 
captive Spaniard. The route of one of these lay through 
bogs and swamps where the horses traveled with 
difficulty, but where the Indians moved about freely. 
A soldier said of the savages: "Warlike and nimble, 
when we charge they run away; and as soon as we turn 
our backs they are at us again. They never keep still, 
but are always running about, so that no crossbow nor 
arquebuse can be aimed at them, and before a man of 
us makes one shot they make six." This detachment 
returned at the end of Its time bringing one man mor- 
tally wounded, and several others with minor hurts, 
and nothing gained except four frightened squaw cap- 
tives. 

The other detachment started out briskly with an 
Indian to guide it. But after a time he became uncer- 
tain in his conduct and led the troop aimlessly through 
the forest from one bypath to another. At length the 
Spaniards discovered his treachery. They arrived 
where the woods were thin enough to allow a distant 
view, and saw the masts of the ships In the bay. Then 
they knew that they had been traveling in a circle, 
and they scared the Indian into guiding them aright. 
Not long afterward they turned Into an open plain and 
encountered face to face a small band of savages. The 
troopers, all eagerness to fight, spurred forward at full 
speed, with lances set, and the Indians darted into the 



8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

leafy coverts of the forest. Only two of the fugitives 
were overtaken. One was wounded and captured. 
The other turned, warded off with his bow the lance 
thrust at him, made the sign of the cross in the air, and 
shouted to his pursuers in Spanish. He was Juan 
Ortiz, the man whom they were seeking, and they 
returned to camp with him. 

Juan's three comrades had been killed shortly after 
their capture at a great tribal feast In Hirrlhigua's 
village. He, then a boy of eighteen, was spared at the 
request of the chief's wife and daughters — spared to 
labor as a slave fetching wood and water, scantily fed, 
and constantly buffeted and cudgeled. On every feast 
day he furnished amusement for the people by being 
chased, and pelted with blunt arrows from sunrise to 
sunset. At the day's end, when he lay panting and 
exhausted on the ground, the chief's wife and daugh- 
ters would bring him food and speak soft words to him. 

Once Hirrihigua attempted to burn him alive, and 
would have succeeded but for the timely intervention 
of the lad's friends in the chief's family. After that he 
was set to guard the burial-place of the village. This 
was a lonely open field in the depths of the forest. The 
bodies were laid in wooden boxes resting flat on the 
ground. Beasts of prey would come prowling among 
the boxes at night, and sometimes contrived to force 
one open and carry off a corpse. Hirrihigua armed 
Juan with four darts and told him that if he allowed 
a body to be carried off, death should be his punishment. 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 9 

For a time Juan got along very well, but at last he 
went to sleep one night just before dawn. The noise of a 
falling box cover awoke him, and he hurried to the 
burial chests. The body of a child brought there two 
days before was gone. Juan listened and heard a noise 
in the woods like the crunching of bones. He crept 
softly in that direction till he came to a clump of 
bushes. Beyond these he dimly perceived the figure 
of a crouching animal. "May God help me!" he 
muttered, and threw one of his darts with all his 
strength. 

The animal neither moved nor uttered a sound, and 
when daylight came he saw that his missile had pierced 
Its heart, and It lay there dead. He took up the body 
of the child and ran back to the burial-place, where he 
restored it to its box. Then he grasped the brute by 
one of Its feet and dragged It to the village. The In- 
dians praised him for what he had done, and HIrrihIgua 
gave him other employment. For a time things went 
better, but the chief's old malice returned, and at last 
Hlrrlhigua's eldest daughter smuggled Juan away to 
the protection of a young neighboring chief who wanted 
her to be his wife. 

He was still with this chief when news came that a 
strong Spanish force had established itself in Hlrrlhi- 
gua's village. Juan, with an escort of warriors, was 
dispatched thither to tell the Christian commander 
how kindly he had been treated by the young chief, 
and to beg in return that the chief and his people 



lo Highways and Byways of Florida 

should not be harmed. It was while Juan was on this 
errand that he met the Spaniards. 

After reaching the camp of his countrymen and 
telling his story, De Soto gave him a doublet and hose 
of fine black velvet, and other clothing, but from long 
habit of having no covering except a cloth around his 
waist, It was several weeks before he could bear any- 
thing more on his skin than the loosest linen garment. 

The fleet had been unloaded, and the nine ships sent 
back to Havana. Pedro Calderon was now appointed 
commander of a small garrison to be left In charge of 
the village and the three caravels. The rest of the 
force marched away Inland, startling the ancient forest 
with clangor of trumpets, the neighing of horses, the 
fluttering of pennons, and the glittering of helmets and 
lances. Presently they entered the territory of Urre- 
barricuxi, but he kept In hiding and would not be 
tempted out either for peace or war. 

Farther on they pushed through a swamp that they 
were two days In crossing, and the scouts reported 
another swamp ahead that made the crossing of the 
one just passed seem like child's play. The vast region 
of this "mother swamp," as they called it, was so miry 
as to be impassable. De Soto himself went forth scout- 
ing with a troop of horsemen looking for an opening, 
or a footpath used by the Indians. No footpath was 
found, though the Indians infested the region like 
mosquitoes. Again and again they swarmed forth 
with sudden fury, shot a volley of arrows, and disap- 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 1 1 

peared. However, the arrows did little harm to the 
armor-protected horsemen. A few captives were taken 
and forced to act as guides, but they led their captors 
astray. De Soto had four of them thrown to the dogs, 
several of which were taken along on every reconnois- 
sance. The dogs' appetites were kept keen by starva- 
tion, and they soon made an end of the four Indians. A 
fifth, in dread of a like fate, offered to guide the whites 
faithfully, and he led them around the swamp. 

The next country to which they came was that of 
the chief Acuera. As soon as some captives had been 
secured, they were sent with greetings and presents to 
their chief. He was invited to meet the Spaniards in 
peace and friendship. But Acuera responded that 
from other Spaniards in years gone by he had become 
well aware what manner of folk they were. They went 
wandering round like vagabonds from country to coun- 
try, robbing people who had done them no harm what- 
ever. With such persons he wished no kind of peace 
and friendship, but never-ending war. He would fight 
them as long as they remained in his land, and he 
warned them that he had ordered his people to bring 
him two Christian heads each week. 

The chief proved to be a man of his word. During 
the twenty days that the invaders lingered in his ter- 
ritory he assailed them unceasingly, and his people 
brought him more than twice the quota of heads he 
had requested. A Spaniard could not wander a hun- 
dred yards from camp, unarmed, without being spitted 



12 Highways and Byways of Florida 

by an arrow, and his comrades were rarely so quick to 
the rescue but that they found a headless corpse await- 
ing them. 

The captive Indians spoke of a province called Ocali, 
farther along to the northeast, where the people wore 
ornaments of gold. This decided De Soto to direct his 
march thither, but he found only little groups of de- 
serted cabins, and storehouses well filled with corn and 
pumpkins, dried plums and grapes, and nuts. He saw 
no evidence of gold. Before leaving Ocali he captured 
thirty Indians for slaves. 

The country beyond was ruled by three brothers; 
five-tenths by the eldest, three-tenths by the second, 
and two-tenths by the youngest. One morning before 
daylight De Soto surprised and captured the youngest 
brother's village with the chief and all his warriors in 
it. However, only the young chief was retained a 
prisoner. The rest were liberated. The captive was 
flattered and treated with honor, and by this means 
was persuaded to send messages to his brothers advis- 
ing their submission to the invaders. The second 
brother promptly came in state escorted by his best 
warriors and made peace with the Spaniards. But the 
eldest brother declared that if the white men entered 
his territory he would roast half of them, and boil alive 
the other half. Every day two of his heralds would 
approach the camp, sounding their horns, and pro- 
claiming defiance with great bravado. His brothers 
finally came and made a personal appeal to him. Then 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 13 

he pretended to be won by their persuasion, the Span- 
iards were invited to march into his domain, and he 
made ready for a grand reception and for a grand 
massacre afterward. 

The strangers were entertained In the chief's village, 
where a great store of food was provided for them and 
their horses. There were two hundred well-built cabins 
in the place, and a fringe of smaller and poorer ones on 
the outskirts. De Soto and his staff were lodged in the 
chief's big cabin. The chief planned to slaughter his 
visitors at the end of three days of feasting, but his 
purpose was betrayed to Juan Ortiz by one of the native 
interpreters. His warriors were to assemble on a near 
by plain with their weapons hidden in the grass at 
their feet, and the Spaniards were to be invited to see 
what a fine troop they made. When the proper mo- 
ment came, the chief was to give a signal, and they 
were to destroy the strangers. 

De Soto learned of this scheme through Juan Ortiz, 
and he went to the plain with his men in battle array 
prepared to attack first. He led a charge of his horse- 
men on the Indian squadrons. The Spaniards tram- 
pled and overthrew the savages, and slew them with 
their swords right and left. It was armor against naked 
skins, steel blades against bows and arrows. Many 
Indians were slain, and hundreds were captured, in- 
cluding the chief. His warriors were compelled to do 
the camp drudgery as slaves, but he was treated more 
like a guest. Even yet he fancied that a final triumph 



14 Highways and Byways of Florida 

was possible, and he sent secret word to his warrior 
slaves that at noon on a certain day each was to be ready 
to kill the master to whom he had been allotted. He 
would give a war whoop as a signal for action, and he 
promised it would be loud enough to be heard from one 
end of the village to the other. 

The appointed day came, and just after the midday 
meal the chief suddenly seized De Soto by the collar 
with his left hand, and dealt him such a blow in the face 
with his right fist as knocked him senseless. The chief 
flung him down, jumped on him with both feet, and 
shouted the war whoop. It was his last call. Ten or 
twelve Spanish officers were close at hand. They drew 
their swords and plunged them into his body, and he 
fell dead on the unconcious De Soto. The entire camp 
was in commotion, for every Indian had rushed on his 
master with whatever utensil or missile he could lay 
hold of. Several whites were killed and many were 
bruised and maimed; but after the first moment of 
surprise the Spaniards caught up their weapons, and 
they ceased not to use them until not one unbound 
Indian was left alive. Then those who were in chains 
were brought into the public square where platoons 
of halberdiers slew them. 

This was done by De Soto's order. He had soon 
recovered from his swoon, but for twenty days his 
swollen face was kept in plasters and bandages. Mean- 
while the Spaniards had resumed their march. They 
advanced seventy-five miles through a perfect hornet's 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 15 

nest of assailing Indians to the village of the next 
province. Maddened by the attacks, the Spaniards 
chased the Indians like wild hogs, stuck their lances 
through them, and took no prisoners. Now that they 
were at the village, which, as usual, was deserted, they 
ambushed some natives to replace the slaves they had 
lost in the last village. These were taken along with 
iron collars about their necks, and to the collars were 
attached chains that at the other end were fastened to 
the belts of the troopers. It was a matter of complaint 
that sometimes, when in the forest, getting wood, the 
slaves killed their troopers and ran away with their 
chains; or that at night they broke their chains with 
stones and so escaped. 

At last the expedition came to a swamp so vast that 
the Spanish ever afterward called it simply the "Great 
Swamp." Only one narrow opening could be discov- 
ered, and the Spaniards followed its winding course 
that would admit no more than two men abreast. 
Often they had to wade, and much of the way they had 
to fight the natives; but they persisted till the last 
stretch of jungle was passed. They were now in open 
woodland. Here the Indians had blocked the path 
with felled trees and with vines tied across the trail. 
However, the adventurers finally reached the culti- 
vated lands of Apalachee, which were famed through- 
out Florida for their fertility, and a few days more 
of marching brought them to the chief village of 
the country. This is believed to have been in the 



i6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

neighborhood of Tallahassee. There they spent the 
winter. 

A troop which was sent south to seek the sea came 
out on the shore of the spacious bay of Apalachee and 
retraced its way to camp to report. Then De Soto 
dispatched thirty cavaliers to make the one hundred 
and fifty league journey to Hirrihigua's village and 
order Calderon's garrison to join him. They departed 
several hours before daybreak on the 20th of October, 
lightly equipped with helmets and coats of mail, and 
each carrying a lance and a small wallet of food. They 
proposed to travel rapidly and to kill every Indian they 
met, so no alarm would get ahead of them that would 
result in their being ambushed. 

The first day they went thirty-three miles and killed 
two Indians. Some days they made as much as fifty 
miles. They suffered from cold, they had to cross 
swollen streams, partly by swimming, partly on rude 
rafts they made, and there were many narrow escapes 
from the Indians. One of the men sickened and died 
in his saddle, and his comrades dug a grave with their 
hatchets and buried him. That night In camp another 
man died with the same mysterious suddenness. The 
others fell on their knees and prayed for the dead; but 
no one would touch the body, for all persisted that the 
man had died of the plague. 

At the end of the twelth day they reached the head- 
quarters of Calderon. One of the caravels was sent to 
Havana, where De Soto's wife was staying, to carry 




"^ 




A Florida jungle 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 17 

her a report of the expedition and a present of slaves. 
The cavaHers sailed in the other two caravels for the 
Bay of Apalachee, while the garrison made the march 
by land. Late in December the caravels arrived in the 
bay, and within a week Calderon's force marched into 
De Soto's camp after daily skirmishing with the Indians 
on all the hard journey. The caravels later voyaged 
along the coast and discovered the harbor of Pensacola, 
and soon afterward sailed to Cuba. 

The Spaniards in their winter camp could scarcely 
venture outside the village without danger of death or 
wounds, and De Soto determined to put an end to the 
warfare by getting the Apalachee chief into his power. 
He learned that this chief had hidden in the center of 
an extensive forest amid the canebrakes of a swamp 
about twenty-five miles distant, De Soto, with a 
company of men, some mounted and some on foot, 
assailed this forest stronghold. There was a short 
fierce battle, and then the chief surrendered. The 
Spaniards gazed in wonder at him. He was too fat to 
walk. He could not even stand upright on his feet. In 
public he was carried. In private he crawled about on 
his hands and knees. 

The Spanish commander received him aflfably and 
returned with him to camp, but, contrary to De Soto's 
expectations, the Indians became more persistent than 
ever in their ambushes. The chief said this was because 
his people suspected that he was being badly treated, and 
he begged to be sent to them as a messenger of peace. 



1 8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

This plan was accepted, and a company of cavalry 
and one of infantry were detailed to go with the chief. 
They traveled all day far into the forest to a spot the 
chief selected. There he began to shout and call, and 
soon ten or twelve warriors stood before him to receive 
his commands. He ordered them to have all the In-- 
dians in the forest gather there on the morrow. Dark- 
ness closed in over the forest, and after sentinels had 
been posted, the rest of the tired Spaniards betook 
themselves to sleep, well satisfied that on the next day 
they would return triumphantly to camp escorting the 
whole of the chief's tribe in docile submission. But 
when daylight came they found that the chief had 
disappeared. Evidently the sentinels had failed to 
keep awake, and he had crawled away to his lurking 
warriors, who had hoisted him on their shoulders and 
borne him beyond the reach of his enemies. The Span- 
iards beat the forest in vain in search of him and went 
back to De Soto ashamed and discomfited. 

The Indian prowlers continued to haunt the wood- 
land roundabout the camp. They showed wonderful 
dexterity In the use of bow and arrow, though this was 
but natural considering their training. According to 
the Spaniards, Indian babies of three years or less, as 
soon as they could stand on their feet, were given tiny 
bows and arrows, with which they hunted the beetles 
and other insects crawling round their cabins. They 
would watch for hours before the hole of a mouse or a 
lizard, waiting to shoot the creature when it came forth. 



Ponce de Leon and Fernando de Soto 19 

If there was no larger game available, they sped their 
arrows at the flies on the cabin walls. 

In March, De Soto and his dwindling force journeyed 
northeasterly from Apalachee. They were soon beyond 
the confines of what is now Florida, and we will not 
follow them farther in their strange and tragic adven- 
tures. 



II 

THE OLDEST CITY IN THE UNITED STATES 

A S the earliest permanent settlement made by 
/% Europeans in the United States, St. Augustine 
^ »^ will always have exceptional interest. Its 
beginnings are interwoven in a story of barbaric war- 
fare between the French and Spanish. Captain Jean 
Ribaut with a small French fleet visited the coast in 
1562, and named the harbor of St. Augustine the 
"River of Dolphins" because of the many porpoises 
he saw there. Thence he went on northward and en- 
tered the mouth of the St. Johns. Somewhere beside 
its waters he planted a stone cross on which was carved 
the fleur-de-lis of France, After more exploration 
along the coast he sailed back across the Atlantic. 

Two years later another fleet came with a colony of 
French Protestants to make a permanent settlement 
of the country. The colonists were welcomed by the 
Indians, who had carefully preserved Ribaut's cross 
with its mystic symbols, and had even sacrificed to it. 
These French got to know the savages very well, and 
found among them some who claimed to be two and 
a half centuries old and expected to live thirty or forty 
years more. 



The Oldest City in the United States 21 

A spot was selected a few miles up the St. Johns, on 
the south side, and with pine logs and sand a fort was 
constructed and called Fort Caroline. This was on 
what is now known as St. Johns Bluff. The leader of 
the French said that on top of the hill grew "cedars, 
palms, and bay trees of so sovereign odor that balm 
smelleth not more sweetly," and in conclusion asserted, 
"The place is so pleasant that those which are mel- 
ancholic would be inforced to change their humor." 
From the summit of the bluff the sea was in plain sight 
to the east, and in the other direction meadows and 
islets. 

Presently queer doings began In Fort Caroline. A 
soldier who professed to have some expertness in magic 
stirred up disaffection. Those who came under his 
influence seized the leader of the colony while he was 
sick, shut him up, and then went off with a couple of 
vessels on a piratical cruise. They were not very suc- 
cessful as freebooters. Most of them perished. The 
remnant returned to Fort Caroline, where the com- 
mandant took four of the ringleaders into custody and 
shot them. Afterward he hung them on gibbets as a 
warning to others who might be tempted to mutiny. 

Before long the garrison got into great straits for 
lack of food. But when their resources were well-nigh 
exhausted Sir John Hawkins with an English fleet 
visited Fort Caroline and gave them a generous allow- 
ance of provisions. One of the English wrote, "The 
ground doth yield victuals sufficient, if they would have 



22 Highways and Byways of Florida 

taken pains to get the same; but they, being soldiers, 
desired to live by the sweat of other men's brows." 

This same chronicler said of the use of tobacco 
among the Florida Indians that "When they travel, 
they have a kind of herb dried, and a cane with an 
earthern cup in the end. They put together fire and 
the dried herb, and do suck through the cane the 
smoke, and therewith they live four or five days with- 
out meat or drink; and this all the Frenchmen used for 
this purpose, yet do they hold that it causeth them to 
reject from their stomachs and spit out water and 
phlegm." 

The Spanish sovereign, who considered Florida his 
property by right of discovery, learned of the French 
colony, and promptly dispatched Pedro Menendez in 
eleven vessels with twenty-six hundred men to exter- 
minate it. When Menendez with several of his ships 
approached the mouth of the St. Johns on the after- 
noon of September 4, 1565, he descried four French 
vessels anchored there outside the bar. These were 
part of a fleet with which Jean Ribaut had again come 
to America. Menendez prepared for battle, while the 
French assailed him with scoffs and insults, but cut 
their cables, left their anchors, and in all haste got 
their sails up and fled. The Spanish chaplain wrote, 
"These devils are such adroit sailors and maneuvered 
so well that we did not catch one of them." Pursuers 
and pursued ran out to sea firing useless volleys at each 
other. 




The Cathedral, completed in IJQJ 




Ancient Spanish gdlt:v(iy 



The Oldest City in the United States 23 

By and by Menendez turned back, and voyaged 
along the coast southward till he came to an inlet which 
he entered, and there debarked troops, guns, and 
stores to establish a colony. He had arrived on St. 
Augustine's Day, and conferred the saint's name on 
his settlement. Here was an Indian village. The 
dwelling of the chief was a huge barn-like structure, 
strongly framed of entire trunks of trees, and thatched 
with palmetto leaves. This was taken possession of 
by the Spaniards, and around it gangs of workers 
toiled throwing up intrenchments. On the 8th of the 
month Menendez took formal possession of his domain. 
He landed in state at the head of his ofhcers, while 
cannon were fired, trumpets sounded, and banners 
were displayed. The chaplain, crucifix in hand, came 
chanting a hymn to meet Menendez, who, with all his 
company knelt and kissed the crucifix. Roundabout 
were gathered the Indians gazing in silent wonder. 

Ribaut learned of the landing of Menendez, and put 
to sea to make a surprise attack on the enemy. The 
next day the crew of one of the smaller Spanish vessels 
that lay outside the bar at St. Augustine with Menen- 
dez himself on board saw through the twilight of early 
dawn two of Ribaut's ships close at hand. Not a 
breath of air was stirring, and escape seemed impos- 
sible. The Spaniards fell on their knees and prayed 
for a little wind. Their prayer was granted, and they 
found refuge behind the bar. Soon the increasing light 
revealed to their astonished eyes nearly all of Ribaut's 



24 Highways and Byways of Florida 

ships, hovering off the entrance to the port, their decks 
black with men. But the breeze which Heaven had 
sent now freshened to a gale, and then rose to a storm 
more violent than any that the Indians had ever known 
before. It lashed the ocean into fury, and Menendez 
saw the French fleet beat seaward through the rack and 
mist, and go on beyond sight, forced southerly by the 
tempest. Then he decided to march overland and 
attack Fort Caroline during Ribaut's absence. Natives 
guided him and a force of five hundred men across the 
intervening forty miles of forest with its vines and 
palmetto thickets, and of inundated lowlands with their 
brambles, bulrushes, and mud. 

Of Ribaut's followers left at the fort, only nine or 
ten had weapons. Four of them were boys who kept 
Ribaut's dogs, and another was his cook. Besides the 
few who had weapons, he left a brewer, an old crossbow- 
maker, two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four 
valets, an elderly carpenter, a crowd of women and 
children, and eighty-six camp-followers. In addition 
there were the men who had been at the fort before 
Ribaut arrived, but only seventeen of these were able 
to bear arms. 

The force, such as it was, stood guard in two watches, 
each watch In charge of an officer who had a lantern 
for going the rounds, and an hour-glass for keeping 
track of the time. When day dawned on the 20th of 
September, floods of rain were drenching the sentries 
on the ramparts, and the ofiicer took pity on them and 



The Oldest City in the United States 25 

on himself, and they all went to their quarters. At 
that very moment the Spaniards were in the neighbor- 
ing thickets. Soon they made a rush on the fort, which 
had been allowed to fall into disrepair and had several 
breaches in its defenses. A trumpeter saw them and 
blew an alarm which brought a few half naked soldiers 
running wildly out of the barracks. They could make 
no effective resistance, the fort was captured, and in a 
short time most of its inmates had been slaughtered. 
But "after the rage of the assault was spent, Menendez 
ordered that women, infants, and boys under fifteen 
should be spared." A few of the other defendants 
escaped to the woods, and with great difficulty made 
their way to the mouth of the river, where were two 
vessels in which they sailed away to France. 

Menendez caused his men prisoners to be hung on 
the near by trees and left with them an inscription, 
"I do this not as to Frenchmen, but to Lutherans." 
Before departing, the pious butcher mustered his fol- 
lowers, and wept with emotion as here counted the many 
ways in which Heaven had helped their enterprise. 

When he returned to St. Augustine, on the 24th, 
accompanied by fifty of his men, he was met by the 
chaplain bearing a crucifix, "whereupon he, like a 
gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled with all his 
followers, and gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the 
great favors he had received from Him." Then the 
triumphant victors entered St. Augustine In solemn 
procession preceded by four chanting priests. 



26 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Ribaut's fleet was wrecked on the Florida coast by 
the storm, but most of the voyagers got to the shore — 
one party of about three hundred and fifty with Ribaut 
well down toward Cape Canaveral, and another party 
of two hundred farther north. Both parties began to 
make their way toward Fort Caroline. The only seri- 
ous obstacle In their way was Matanzas Inlet, twenty 
miles south of St. Augustine. The lesser party arrived 
there first and camped, unable to cross. Indians 
brought word of their plight one midday to Menendez, 
who promptly set out with three boats to reconnoiter. 
About twenty men went in each boat. They rowed 
along the channel between Anastasia Island and the 
main shore, but when they neared the Inlet left their 
boats and walked to the other side of the island. There 
they bivouacked after nightfall on the sands within 
sight of the campfires of the shipwrecked French. Be- 
fore daybreak the next morning they went to the bor- 
ders of the Inlet and hid in a bushy hollow. As it grew 
light they could discern the enemy, many of whom 
were searching along the sands and shallows for shell- 
fish to relieve their hunger. 

Menendez went part way across the inlet in a boat 
and parleyed with a Frenchman who swam out to 
meet him. As a result five of the wrecked party were 
brought over to the Island for a further parley, but the 
Spanish leader's only response to their appeals for aid 
and mercy was, "If you will give up your weapons, I 
will do to you as the grace of God shall direct." More- 




■^ 



E~, 






ii ** -" 





Ruin of a Spanish fort at Matanzas Inlet 



The Oldest City in the United States 27 

over, he said in conclusion: "I have but few men, and 
you are so many that you could easily overpower us. 
Therefore it is necessary that you should march with 
your hands tied." 

The starving French had no recourse except to let 
him have his way. So first the boat conveyed across 
their banners, guns, swords, and helmets. Then the 
men were brought over ten at a time. As each boat- 
load arrived, the ten men were taken about two bow- 
shots from the shore behind a hillock of sand in a 
thicket of bushes, and tied. The transporting con- 
sumed the entire day. Twelve of the French who 
professed themselves to be Catholics, and four carpen- 
ters and calkers, of whom Menendez said he was in 
great need, were sent to St. Augustine by water. The 
rest were ordered to march thither by land. They 
were escorted by a vanguard and rearguard whom 
Menendez had ordered to destroy all these prisoners 
at a certain lonely spot not far distant, deep among the 
bush-covered sandhills; and this was done accordingly. 

Somewhat more than a week later, word was brought 
to Menendez that the larger French party was on the 
south side of the inlet, and he went to deal with it. He 
parleyed much as before, but only one hundred and 
fifty of the French were persuaded to come across. Of 
these he spared two young gentlemen of about eighteen 
years of age, and also a fifer, a drummer, and a trump- 
eter. The others, including Ribaut, were butchered. 
The tragic fate that they and their predecessors met 



28 Highways and Byways of Florida 

here is commemorated by the name borne by the in- 
let — Matanzas — the place of slaughter. It is said that 
human bones are often found in the sand of the vicin- 
ity, and that the spot is haunted by unquiet ghosts, 
who at midnight shriek and moan and expostulate 
earnestly in some foreign language. 

The remaining two hundred of RIbaut's men went 
down the coast and started to build a vessel from frag- 
ments of the wreck, but a Spanish force was sent to 
deal with them. Some were captured, and the rest 
fled to the Indian towns. Thus was ended for the 
time being French colonization in Florida. 

The winter that followed was a trying one to the 
St. Augustine garrison. The naturally friendly Indians 
had been estranged by the cruel treatment of the Span- 
iards, and none of the whites could go outside the 
fort to hunt or fish without danger from an ever-vig- 
ilant and crafty foe. It is said that the lurking savages 
slew more than one hundred and twenty of the gar- 
rison by surprising them singly or in small parties. 
Provisions were scarce, and a considerable part of the 
colonists returned to Cuba, Mexico, and Spain. 

Meanwhile Menendez had replaced his first rude 
fortification with a more pretentious one that he called 
Fort St. John of the Pines. It was an octagonal 
structure that had walls of logs set upright in the 
ground, and it mounted fourteen brass cannon. After 
finishing this fort and erecting dwellings and a house 
of worship, Menendez sailed away to Spain. 



The Oldest City In the United States 29 

In April, 1568, an avenging expedition of two hun- 
dred and fifty men from France arrived on the Florida 
coast. They communicated with the Indians, whom 
they found hostile to the Spaniards, gathered a large 
force of them, and without much trouble captured 
what had been Fort Caroline. Such prisoners as were 
taken were led to the same spot where Menendez had 
hung his victims. The French leader harangued them, 
then swung them up on the trees that had served as 
gallows before. Afterward he replaced the Menendez 
tablet with a pine board on which was seared the state- 
ment that he hung the men, not because they were 
Spaniards, but because they were "traitors, thieves, 
and murderers." The French went away satisfied, 
yet they had not exterminated the enemy, and St. 
Augustine continued to exist. 

Menendez returned the next year and turned his 
attention to converting the Indians to his religion. 
They did not, however, seem to appreciate its sub- 
limity. In one place four priests succeeded in baptiz- 
ing seven people in a year; but three of the converts 
were dying, and the other four were children. The 
Indians were quicker to accept the practice than the 
precepts of Menendez, and the Spaniards suffered 
much from their depredations. 

In 1586 the famous English sea rover. Sir Francis 
Drake, who had been commissioned by Queen Eliza- 
beth to capture or destroy as much Spanish property 
as possible, was sailing along the coast of Florida with 



30 Highways and Byivays of Florida 

his fleet when he discovered a lookout on Anastasia 
Island. An armed party was sent ashore to investigate, 
and it soon returned and reported that the Spaniards 
had a fort and a settlement over on the mainland. 
Drake then landed a cannon near the head of the is- 
land, and two shots were fired at the fort just at night- 
fall. The first passed through the royal standard of 
Spain waving above the ramparts, and the second 
struck the log walls. 

Morning dawned, and Drake says, "Forthwith came 
a Frenchman, being a phipher. In a little boat, playing 
on his phiph a familiar English tune." He proved to 
be one of the men whom Menendez had spared at the 
time of the Matanzas massacre. Drake learned from 
him that everybody had been scared away from the 
fort. Boats were at once manned, and the English 
soon entered the town. The garrison. In the haste of 
their flight, had left behind them at the fort the treas- 
ure chest containing two thousand pounds, and this 
fell Into Drake's hands. He plundered and burned 
both the fort and town. 

After his departure the people, with some assistance 
from Havana, began the task of rebuilding. Two 
Indian villages had been established close by — one 
right on the northern borders of the town and the 
other somewhat farther north. In both villages mis- 
sionaries labored for the salvation of the savages; but 
in 1598 a young Indian chief, dissatisfied with the 
restrictions and reproaches of the priests, incited a 



The Oldest City in the United States 31 

general conspiracy against them. One evening he and 
his followers killed Father Corpa In the chapel of the 
nearer village. Then they went to the other village to 
serve Father Rodriguez In the same manner. He 
begged that he might say mass before he died, and this 
favor was granted. His assailants stood by listening 
till he finished, then killed him, and the altar was spat- 
tered with his blood. Later they went to the several 
other missions up and down the coast, and very nearly 
exterminated the missionaries. Of course vengeance 
was taken by the Spaniards. Many of the marauders 
were slain, and their villages and granaries were burned. 

There was another Indian outbreak In 1638, and a 
large number of prisoners were brought to St. Augus- 
tine and set to work on the fortifications. They and 
their descendants were kept at this task for sixty years. 

In 1665 John Davis, a famous pirate, sailed into the 
harbor of St. Augustine with seven vessels. Citizens 
and soldiers fled to the woods, and the town was plun- 
dered and Its wooden portion burned. 

The next serious experience of the place was in 1702, 
at a time when England and Spain were at war. An 
expedition from South Carolina consisting of six hun- 
dred militia and an equal number of Indians attacked 
St. Augustine by land and by sea. The stone fort of 
San Marco was nearing completion, and while the 
town was easily captured a month's siege failed to 
reduce the fort Into which the town-folk had retired, 
taking with them their valuables. Presently two 



32 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Spanish vessels appeared before the harbor, and the 
besiegers hastened to burn the town and escape, aban- 
doning their transports and a considerable amount of 
munitions and stores. This expedition cost South 
Carolina six thousand pounds, which for a young and 
struggling colony of not much more than five thousand 
people was such a burden that it led to the issue of the 
first paper money ever circulated in America. 

The feeling of enmity between the English and 
Spanish settlements long continued, and at length 
Governor Oglethorpe of Georgia undertook to capture 
St. Augustine. He began to bombarb it June 24, 1740, 
with three batteries located on Anastasia Island. The 
entire population of the town, about three thousand, 
took refuge in the fort. Little damage was done, for 
the cannon balls simply embedded themselves In the 
spongy coqulna stone with which the walls were con- 
structed. After about a month of this unsatisfactory 
battering, the Georgians gave up their attempt and 
went back home. 

Inroads such as these, and repeated Indian out- 
breaks, discouraged all attempts to cultivate the soil, 
and St. Augustine remained little more than a garrison 
town until Florida was ceded to England In 1762. 
Then the Spanish inhabitants nearly all left for Cuba. 
Such was their temper that the outgoing governor 
uprooted and destroyed the fine garden of the official 
residence, and it was with difficulty that many others 
were restrained from demolishing their houses. Roads 




A\ f^f^^^l 



^ 1 



"fhiS werry Elaborate 

IS ERECKTED IN ME^^ERY 

or i;fcto;<ATu 

r«,s SPOT ^^^^^Tmerv , 

'^^t WOOD ^NO;„;Si0.t^ ""- "■ 

HOPE ^';' MAN THAN A 
LAVAGE ''I p. 



A St. Augustine monument 



The Oldest City in the United States 33 

were now opened, new settlements made, commerce 
began to develop, and for the first time something like 
representative government was established. But in 
1783 Florida was ceded back to Spain. It was then 
the turn of the English inhabitants to leave. Some 
went to Carolina and Georgia, and others to the British 
West India Islands, and St. Augustine fell back into 
its old sleepy condition of a garrison town. This was 
perhaps the most idyllic period of the city's history. 
The world went on fighting as usual, but St. Augustine 
had ceased to be a bone of contention. During the 
genial winter months there was music and dancing, 
and civil and ecclesiastical feasts, and all the light 
amusements dear to the Latin heart. A traveler 
writing of the place then says: "The women are de- 
servedly celebrated for their charms. Much attention 
is paid to the arrangement of their hair, their complex- 
ion is a clear brunette, and their lovely black eyes have 
a vast deal of expression." The town's narrow paved 
streets were lined with cool gray coquina-walled houses, 
and it was a veritable bower of tropical vegetation. 
Within the gates no hoof of horse ever sounded. Those 
who could afford to ride went about in palanquins. 

After the "Louisiana Purchase" had been negoti- 
ated, the acquisition of Florida by the United States 
became a matter of prime importance. Its geograph- 
ical situation gave it command over the marine high- 
way between the old and new sections of the United 
States, and in alien hands it was a menace to the na- 



34 Highways and Byways of Florida 

tion's commerce. While it belonged to a weak country 
like Spain, it was an asylum for restless Indians, fugi- 
tive slaves, pirates, and other outlaws, who waged a 
vindictive warfare on the republic. 

On the loth of July, 1821, the guns of the fort thun- 
dered their parting salute to the Spanish flag as the 
garrison marched out across the drawbridge. Then 
the same guns roared forth a rousing welcome to the 
stars and stripes which had been run up in place of the 
Spanish banner. Florida had been bought by the 
United States. 

Indian warfare continued to be a disturbing factor 
until 1842. Afterward population increased rapidly, 
and St. Augustine, which hitherto had been the leading 
town, was outdistanced by other places. But a new 
era began for St. Augustine when the Civil War ended. 
The excellent health enjoyed by the Northern garrison 
which occupied the place during the last three years 
of the war proved a telling advertisement for the salu- 
brity of the climate, and no sooner were hostilities 
over than inquiries began to arrive as to hotel accom- 
modations for the coming winter. New hotels were 
built, unfamiliar Paris fashions appeared on the streets 
with the approach of cooler weather, and the ancient 
Spanish city entered on a career of prosperity which 
surpassed her wildest dreams. 

The city stands near the southern end of a peninsula 
formed by the Matanzas and San Sebastian Rivers. 
The land is for the most part level, and, where not 



The Oldest City In the United States 35 

cuhivated, is covered with beach scrub. Farther back 
are monotonous miles of flat woods and prairie. The 
gray and time-worn old fortress of San Marco (St. 
Mark), with its gloomy portals and dark chambers, is 
the most fascinating feature of the place. Its first 
stone was laid in 1592, the last in 1756, and it covers 
five acres beside the sea. It is a complete medieval 
fortress, and is one of the best preserved specimens in 
the world of the military architecture of its time. No 
other fortification on the western continent can rival 
it in age. The name bestowed on it by the Spaniards 
was San Marco. When it fell into the hands of the 
English they changed the name to St. John. Finally 
the United States adopted the present name in honor 
of a patriot general of the Revolution. 

It was built by the labor of Indian captives, negro 
slaves, and of convicts brought from Mexico and Spain. 
The material used was coquina rock from the far side 
of Anastasia Island opposite the town. The blocks of 
quarried stone were carried on cross-bars resting on 
the shoulders of the laborers, over a long causeway to 
a landing where they were loaded on barges. The 
walls are nine feet thick at the bottom and half as 
thick at the top. They rise twenty-five feet above the 
present level of the moat which surrounds the fort. 
This moat Is forty feet wide. It could be flooded by 
means of automatic gates which opened when the tide 
came in, and closed when the tide went out. The moat 
now has sand in it to a depth of several feet. 



36 Highways and Byways of Florida 

A fortified gate protected the entrance, and all who 
came into the fort had to pass over a drawbridge that 
spanned the moat, and under a heavy portcullis. 
Above the entrance was a hole through which melted 
lead could be poured on Invaders. The broad level at 
the top of the ramparts had mountings for sixty-four 
guns, and these guns could be trundled down to the 
lower level, or from there up to the ramparts, by an 
incline, which has latterly been converted into a flight 
of steps. 

Along the sea front numerous scars and Indentations 
can be seen In the masonry. Some of these were made 
by British guns during Oglethorpe's siege. Others 
have been inflicted by modern riflemen, who at times 
used the moat as a shooting-gallery. There is also a 
courtyard wall pitted with holes where prisoners form- 
erly stood to be shot, and the grass is said to grow 
thicker on that spot than elsewhere even yet because 
so much blood was spilled there on the ground. 

A small brick building In the eastern moat is a fur- 
nace built in 1844 to make hot shot for the water bat- 
tery to discharge at approaching enemy vessels. 

Directly opposite the entrance, inside the fort, was a 
chapel, without which no Spanish fort of the period 
was complete. It was used for religious services as 
late as i860, and at a later time served as a schoolroom 
for some Indian prisoners. 

One dungeon was used to punish ofl"enders by chain- 
ing them to the wall so that they could neither sit nor 



I 



The Oldest City in the United States 37 

lie down, but were compelled to maintain an upright 
position. In another, which had been sealed up and 
its existence unsuspected until the roof caved in, were 
found two cages, one containing the skeleton of a man, 
and the other that of a woman. 

After the capture of Charleston by the British during 
the American Revolution, more than fifty of the most 
distinguished South Carolinians were seized and sent 
to St. Augustine, where they were held for several 
months. One of their number was imprisoned nearly 
a year in the old fort because he refused to accept the 
conditions on which the rest were allowed the range 
of the city streets. 

In a casemate near the southwest bastion was con- 
fined Coacoochee, a celebrated chief in the Seminole 
War. He was captured in October, 1837. The whites 
had invited Osceola to a conference which was held 
under a tree a few miles from St. Augustine. Thither 
he came bearing a flag of truce and accompanied by 
eighty warriors. They were all unarmed. During the 
conference the mounted troops closed in. Osceola was 
knocked down with the butt of a musket, and he and 
Coacoochee and various other chiefs, and Talmus 
Hadjo, the medicine man, and the rest, were taken to 
Fort Marlon. The only excuse offered by the whites 
for this cowardly betrayal was that "The end justifies 
the means; the Indians have made fools of us too often." 

Coacoochee and Talmus Hadjo, who occupied a 
room together, contrived to get away from their prison 



38 Highways and Byways of Florida 

a few months later, and here is the former's account 
of how they did it: 

"We had been growing sickly, and so resolved to 
make our escape or die in the attempt. We were in a 
room eighteen or twenty feet square. All the light 
admitted was through a hole about eighteen feet from 
the floor. Through this we must effect our escape. 
A sentinel was constantly posted at the door. To 
reach the hole we from time to time cut up the forage- 
bags allowed us to sleep on, and made them into ropes. 
For some weeks we watched the moon, In order that 
the night of our attempt should be as dark as possible. 
The keeper of the prison, on the night determined on, 
annoyed us by frequently coming into the room, and 
talking and singing. At first we thought of tying him, 
and putting his head in a bag so that, should he call 
for assistance, he could not be heard. We first, how- 
ever, tried the experiment of pretending to be asleep. 
This accomplished our object. He came in, and went 
immediately out; and we could hear him snore in the 
vicinity of the door, I then took the rope, which we 
had secreted under our bed, and mounting on the 
shoulder of my comrade worked a knife into a crevice 
of the stonework as far up as I could reach. On this I 
raised myself to the opening. Here I made fast the 
rope that my friend might follow me. I then passed 
a sufhclent length of it through the hole to reach about 
twenty-five feet to the ground In the ditch outside. 
With much difficulty I succeeded in getting through, 



The Oldest City in the United States 39 

for the sharp stones took the skin off my breast and 
back. I was obHged to go down head foremost until 
my feet were through, fearing every moment the rope 
would break. 

"At last, safe on the ground, I awaited with anxiety 
the arrival of my comrade. Two men passed near me, 
talking earnestly, and I could see them distinctly. 
Soon I heard the struggling of my companion far above 
me. He had succeeded in getting his head through, 
but his body would come no farther. In the lowest 
tone of voice I urged him to throw out his breath, and 
then try. Afterward he came tumbling down the 
whole distance. For a few moments I thought him 
dead. I dragged him to some water close by, which 
restored him, but his leg was so lame he was unable to 
walk. I took him on my shoulder to a thicket near the 
town. Daylight was just breaking. It was evident 
we must move rapidly. I caught a mule in an adjoin- 
ing field, and making a bridle out of my sash, helped 
my companion mount, and started for the St. Johns 
River. The mule was used one day, but fearing the 
whites would track us, we felt more secure on foot, 
though moving very slow. Thus we continued our 
journey five days, subsisting on roots and berries, when 
I joined my band, then assembled on the headwaters 
of the Tomoka River." 

The possibility of making such an escape from the 
old fort has sometimes been questioned. A wealthy 
tourist once wagered that the Indian captives could 



40 Highways and Byways of Florida 

not have gotten out through that high window and 
down to the ground. A United States sergeant ac- 
cepted the wager and himself performed the feat to the 
great delight of the spectators. 

During the years 1875 to 1878 a considerable number 
of Texas Indians were imprisoned in the St. Augustine 
fortress. Some were known to be guilty of atrocious 
crimes. Others were simply leading men of their 
tribes against whom there was no particular charge, 
but who were confined on the principle that prevention 
is better than cure. Among them were individuals 
with such names as Medicine Water, Hailstone, Sharp 
Bully, Come See Him, and Lean Bear. During the 
day they were allowed to move about the Interior of 
the fort, and were sometimes taken out in squads to 
bathe. At night they were locked up. 

In 1886 seventy-seven Apache Indians were brought 
to the fort, where they were kept about a year. One 
of them was Nanna, their nation's greatest war chief, 
and a person who probably had more scars on his body 
than any other man In the country. 

The fort was In the hands of the Confederates at the 
time of the Civil War until March, 1862, when a Union 
gunboat came across the bar, and the fort displayed 
a white flag. The small garrison and about one-fourth 
of the Inhabitants had fled the night before, and a 
number of women had cut down the flagstaff In front 
of the barracks in order to delay the hoisting of the 
national colors. 



The Oldest City in the United States 41 

Shortly afterward a detail of Federal troops from 
the fort, acting as guards for a party of wood-cutters, 
was attacked by a squadron of Confederate cavalry. 
The attacking party made a dash for the teams of the 
wood-cutters, but was driven off after a sharp skirmish. 
Three of the Federals were killed, and their commander 
was mortally wounded. 

In the center of the old section of the city is the 
plaza, an attractive stretch of greensward, paths, 
shrubs, and shade trees. Probably the square was 
originally designed for a parade ground. We know 
that the British soldiers drilled and performed their 
evolutions there, and that it was used in the same way 
by the Union troops in the Civil War. It has always 
been the scene of public meetings, and on It the men- 
at-arms gathered when the alarm gun was fired in the 
old days of strife with red foes and white. While 
Florida was a part of the British empire the American 
Revolution was fought. The sentiment of St. Augus- 
tine was intensely loyal, and when the news of the 
Declaration of Independence was received Adams and 
Hancock were burned in effigy on the plaza. 

Among the trees is a low open-sided pillared struc- 
ture In which the tourists find shelter from the sun, 
and drink sulphur water. This is known as the old 
slave market. It stands on the site of a frame building 
which the Spanish used as a general market, but in 
which slaves are said to have been sometimes sold. 

At the north end of the plaza is the post office with 



42 Highways and Byways of Florida 

its long two-story veranda front. It is without doubt 
the oldest post office In the United States. During the 
Spanish rule it was the governor's palace. The little 
park around It was walled In and was the governor's 
private garden. 

Near by, fronting on the plaza, is the old cathedral, 
finished in 1797, the first Roman Catholic church In 
the United States. Its Moorish belfry contains a 
chime of four bells, the smallest of which bears the 
date of 1682. 

The buildings in the older parts of the town gener- 
ally date back to the final period of Spanish occupancy, 
between 1784 and 1821. On some of the narrow an- 
cient streets many of the houses have balconies that 
project toward each other from the second story In a 
very sociable way. Particularly interesting are the 
buildings that have walls of coqulna. Many of the 
quaint old dwellings have high-walled gardens full of 
tropical trees and flowers. 

Treasury Street, which used to be famed as the 
narrowest street in the United States, has been eflfaced 
by fire. It was six feet and one Inch wide, and a good- 
sized man could reach across It with outstretched 
arms. 

St. George's Street, nineteen feet wide has been the 
main business thoroughfare of the place for three cen- 
turies. Here, near the city gates, is seen a rude little 
story and a half house which Is the oldest frame house 
in our country. It was formerly a schoolhouse. 



The Oldest City in the United States 43 

Scarcely less interesting is the "House of History" 
fronting on the bay. It was erected by Spanish offi- 
cials before 1691, and one of its rooms served for the 
first city jail. Here the more desperate prisoners were 
shackled with heavy chains to the floor. 

St. Augustine's situation on the peninsula is such 
that only from the north was there serious danger of 
land attack. Three lines of defense were constructed 
there extending from river to river. The inner line 
contained the city gates, which have survived to the 
present time flanked by a few yards of coquina wall, 
with the stone sentry boxes in the buttresses. The 
rest of the wall was a palisade of logs. On the outer 
side of the wall was a water-filled moat, and the ap- 
proach to the gates was by a drawbridge which was 
pulled up at night. Substantial earthworks paralled 
the wall farther north, and the exterior slope of their 
parapet was covered with a dense growth of Spanish 
bayonet, through which It was well-nigh impossible to 
force a passage. The gates were strongly guarded, and 
repeatedly saved the town from sudden enemy on- 
slaughts. 

Because the ocean was making encroachments on 
the city, a sea wall was built in 1691. The present sea 
wall, three-fourths of a mile long, was completed by 
the United States government in 1842. It rises ten 
feet above low tide, and has a granite coping three feet 
broad which is much used as a promenade. In the 
early days easterly storms with their accompanying 



44 Highways and Byways of Florida 

high tides often drove the water up into the streets, 
and even now the spray at times flies over the coping. 

There used to be a tattered old darky who loitered 
along the sea wall near the ancient fort, watching with 
wary eyes till a tourist came into his vicinity. Then 
he would say: "Hyar yo' are, suh! Hyar's yo' lucky 
beans. Take a han'ful, suh, an' be lucky all de res' ob 
yo' born days. I give dem to yuh. I aint charge yo' 
nuffin' kase yo' is de ve'y image ob my ol' massa. 
Yaas yo' is, suh! Monst'ous fine lookin' man he was, 
yaas, suh. De ladies jes' nachully foller my ol' massa 
roun' kase he such a fine man. T'ank yo' kindly, suh. 
Yo' sho is like ol' massa!" 

Whether the man he accosted was tall or short, fat 
or lean, made no difference. If he addressed a lady, 
she was the image of his "ol' missus" who was the best 
dressed and handsomest woman in the state. 

When he was asked on a frosty morning what made 
the weather so cold, he replied: "It's dese Northern 
people. We never had nuffin' like dis ontwell dey 
begun to come down hyar so much. 'Pears like dey 
brung it in der clo'es." 

Customs that were relics of the Spanish days pre- 
vailed in the city to the time of the Civil War. Just 
before Lent, carnival was observed, with masquerades 
and idle and frivolous street sport by night, and pro- 
cessions of vagrant men and boys disguised in masks 
and grotesque array by daylight. A ridiculous bur- 
lesque, exhibited In honor of St. Peter, the fisherman 



The Oldest City in the United States 45 

of Galilee, was the closing show of the feast. "As I 
passed along one of the narrow streets," says an eye- 
witness, "my attention was arrested by various excla- 
mations and boisterous cries of a motley crowd of black 
and white, who thronged the street, occasionally surg- 
ing to the right hand and left. On a nearer approach 
I perceived two men heading the rabble with faces 
masked and their persons attired in a coarse shabby 
fisher's dress. Over the shoulder of each was flung a 
net. Whenever a boy, black or white, came within 
range of a cast, the net was suddenly thrown ever him. 
Thus the streets were beset till the end of the carnival 
brought an end ' to this solemn farce illustrating the 
call of St. Peter to become a fisher of men." 

Another odd celebration was the "shivaree." On 
an evening after a marriage the welkin was made to 
ring with a most discordant concert of voices, horns, 
tin pans, and other boisterous sounds. The whole city 
was disturbed by the Ill-mannered riot and confusion. 
In any orderly community It would have consigned 
the perpetrators to a guard-house. The residence of 
the newly-wedded pair was beset by the rabble in some 
cases till the noise-makers were bought off with money 
or whisky. 

In December, 1840, there appeared a "Notice to 
Travelers" informing them that a carriage had begun 
to make the trip twice a week between St. Augustine 
and Picolata, not quite a score of miles west on the 
St. Johns. The notice goes on to say: "Those who 



46 Highways and Byways of Florida 

patronize this undertaking are assured that the horses 
are strong and sound, the carriage commodious and 
comfortable, that none but careful and sober drivers 
will be employed, also every attention will be paid to 
their convenience. Fare each way five dollars. A 
military escort will accompany the stage going and 
returning." 

The Indians were on the warpath at the time, and 
there were many tragedies in the vicinity. One of 
these occurred in May of that year. Three members 
of a theatrical company were attacked while coming 
toward the town over the PIcolata road. One was 
killed. Another hid in a swamp pond, entirely under 
water except his face, and that was covered by a large 
leaf of a water plant. When a party of white searchers 
arrived he revealed himself to them by lifting the leaf, 
greatly to their surprise. The third man escaped to 
St. Augustine, which he Is said to have entered with his 
hair standing perfectly erect on his head, and In twenty- 
four hours his hair had turned entirely white. The 
Indians rifled the baggage wagon and carried ofl" a 
considerable portion of the stage dresses and other 
paraphenalia. Neither this loss nor the death of one 
of their number prevented the troupe from filling their 
engagement in St. Augustine. 

The city was not connected by railroad with Jack- 
sonville until after 1870. For some time previous daily 
steamers plying on the St. Johns between Jacksonville 
and Pilatka left passengers for St. Augustine at Tecol, 



The Oldest City In the United States 47 

which consisted of a shed and a sandbank, and a httle 
shanty where refreshments were served. A raihoad 
went thence across country to the coast. It had wooden 
rails, and the primitive cars were drawn by horses. 
Two hours ordinarily sufficed for the journey, but In 
the height of the season, when the cars were crowded, 
four hours were consumed in going the fifteen miles. 
Yet, In spite of slow locomotion and rough accommo- 
dations, constant throngs of the rank and fashion of 
the winter pleasure seekers passed over this railroad, 
and to some at least the leisurely ride was a source of 
never-ceasing interest and pleasure. Long reaches of 
green moist land formed perfect flower-gardens. The 
woods hung full of beautiful climbing plants. Through 
openings here and there could be seen groves of wild 
orange trees. Palmettos raised their scaly trunks and 
gigantic green fans. Not only did the cars move lei- 
surely, but there were many pauses which enabled the 
passengers to gather specimens of the floral beauties. 

St. Augustine Is separated from the ocean by a water 
channel a half mile broad, and Anastasia Island, which 
has here a width of somewhat over a mile. A long 
bridge connects the city with the Island. Sand dunes, 
partially overgrown with scrub pine and palmetto, are 
the predominant feature of the Island, and so white is 
the sand and so fine its texture that It resembles the 
drifting snows of the far north. 

The Spaniards early found It necessary to main- 
tain a lookout on the island to watch for approaching 



4fe Highways and Byways of Florida 

vessels. They at first posted a man In a "crow's-nest," 
a platform at the top of some tall tree-trunks. Subse- 
quently a coquina tower was erected. In 1769 the 
English added sixty feet to its height with framework 
on which they mounted a cannon. Whenever a vessel 
was sighted coming, the cannon was fired and a flag 
was hoisted. There were two flagstaflfs, one on the 
north side and one on the south side, and the flag was 
run up on the side whence the vessel was approaching. 
After the United States came Into possession of Florida 
the old tower was converted Into a lighthouse whose 
warning rays were first displayed in 1823. It was 
originally a half mile from the beach, but the sea grad- 
ually ate away the land till 1880, when a violent storm 
undermined the walls. The vicinity Is still strewn with 
the ruins. The present light tower Is painted with 
black and white spiral bands so that it can be readily 
distinguished from any other landmark on the coast. 
A mile and a half south of the lighthouse are the 
coquina quarries. Coquina Is a Spanish word which 
means shellfish, and this Indicates the material of 
which the rock Is composed. It Is a natural concrete 
of tiny shells with here and there a larger shell em- 
bedded In It. These shells are the accumulation of 
ages. Before exposure to the air the rock Is compara- 
tively soft and can be readily carved for building pur- 
poses Into any shape required. It Is enduring and 
attractive. Vast quantities of the loose shells strew 
the neighboring beaches. 



<i- 



t*. 




Pablo Beach palmettos and sand dunes 



The Oldest City in the United States 49 

South Beach, on Anastasia Island, boasts of an 
alligator farm, where you can see the alligators in all 
stages of growth from those just out of the shells to the 
mature monsters. The beaches of the vicinity are 
noted for their bathing and fishing and for their au- 
tomobile courses. 

Down at Matanzas Inlet are the ruins of an old 
Spanish fort that guarded this approach to the town. 
Three and a half miles northeast of the inlet a great 
spring wells up through the sea water, which has there 
a general depth of fifty feet. When directly over or to 
the leeward of it a sulphurous odor may be perceived. 



Ill 



THE STATELY ST. JOHNS AND THE BEAUTIFUL 
OCKLAWAHA 

THE Indians called the St. Johns the Welaka, 
which means "chain of lakes," and which very 
accurately describes the stream. When it was 
discovered by the French, who made it a welcome 
harbor on the first day of May, 1562, they named it 
in honor of that month, the River of May, The Span- 
iards called it the San Mateo (St. Matthew) and after- 
ward San Juan (St. John). It is the one large river of 
Florida. Indeed, in its lower course it is one of the 
widest of American rivers, and resembles an arm of 
the sea. It is one of the few rivers on the continent 
that run north. For seventy-five miles between Pa- 
latka and Jacksonville it is never less than one mile 
wide, and in places attains a breadth of six miles. In 
the final stretch of fifteen miles below Jacksonville it 
spreads over extensive marshes, but is comparatively 
narrow where it joins the sea. 

The St. Johns rises in Saw Grass Lake on the borders 
of the Everglades, not a dozen miles from the east 
coast. The water of the upper river is beautifully pure 
and transparent, but below Sanford it is a dark muddy 

5° 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 51 

stream which makes its sluggish way through an in- 
terminable succession of swamps. So sHght is the fall 
that the brackish tides are perceptible for a hundred 
miles above the mouth. 

For over two centuries after the Spanish established 
themselves in Florida the St. Johns was practically the 
only avenue of travel to the interior of the peninsula. 
Vessels drawing five feet can ascend it about two hun- 
dred and thirty miles, and then are only seven miles 
from the tide water of the Indian River. The St. 
Johns affords Innumerable attractions to sportsmen, 
yachtsmen, and fishermen to Indulge In their favorite 
pastime. It is enticing and tricksy for sailing craft, 
for It starts you out with all manner of zephyrs until 
you get Into the very middle, several miles from land 
on either side, when down goes your limp sail, and the 
breeze is off on some other errand, leaving you to your 
reflections. 

The shallows are full of fish, and you may sometimes 
see mullet leap from the river surface six feet Into the 
air, gleaming like silver In the sunshine. 

At Jacksonville the river makes a sharp turn to the 
eastward. Long before the advent of Europeans this 
elbow of the river formed a natural rendezvous for 
tribal, war, and hunting expeditions. An early Eng- 
Hsh name for it was Cows Ford. When Florida was 
under British rule, what was called the King's Road 
was built north and south from St. Augustine, and this 
crossed the St. Johns at Cows Ford. 



52 Highways and Byways of Florida 

In 1816 Lewis Z. Hogans, a settler here on the south 
side of the river, married a Spanish widow, who held a 
grant of two hundred acres of land on the present site 
of Jacksonville. After that he made his home on her 
property. A little later a ferry was established, and 
in 1820 an inn was opened. Two years more passed, 
and streets were laid out and a town government or- 
ganized. In 1833 the place was named in honor of 
General Andrew Jackson, who was governor of Florida 
for a time after it was acquired by the United States. 
During the Seminole War Jacksonville became a place 
of refuge, blockhouses were erected, and a garrison 
was maintained there. 

A description of the city in 1855 Informs us that It 
had a population of less than two thousand. Its streets 
were of deep soft sand, but broad and regular. Fine 
residences were few, and not much attention was paid 
to flowers or lawns. Most of the dwellers rooted out 
the grass so that snakes would be less likely to lurk in 
the yards. There were two or three groves of oaks and 
magnolias in the place, and a swamp in which the 
water was several feet deep in spots. The post office 
was a little ten by twelve wooden structure In which 
the postmaster conducted a jewelry business. Two 
mails arrived each week, one from Savannah, and one 
from Charleston, both by boat. These boats and a 
stage twice a week to Tallahassee were the only public 
conveniences for coming to, or leaving, the city. 

There was a Masonic Hall and an Odd Fellows Hall. 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 53 

The method used to notify the public when a meeting 
was to be held In one of these halls was for an official 
to go to an open window and blow a horn. You can 
judge that the city was not extensive, for the people 
could all hear the tooting. 

Security at night was secured by two patrolmen who 
were selected by the marshal each day from the male 
citizens to serve from eight o'clock In the evening to 
six in the morning. It was their duty to arrest every 
colored person who was found away from home with- 
out a pass from owner or employer. The place where 
those arrested were lodged was a small building called 
"the jug." In the morning they were brought before 
the mayor, fined, and released. 

Several schooners were often at the wharves taking 
on lumber. A city boat towed many logs from both 
up and down the river. The captain usually drew 
near port about midnight, and let every one know he 
was coming, whether they wished that Information or 
not, by sounding his whistle all the time for the last 
few miles until he reached his landing. 

Jacksonville's first railroad, which extended fifty 
miles to Alligator, now Lake City, was begun In 1857. 
It was completed in March, three years later, when 
an excursion was given the people of Jacksonville to 
the western terminal. A big crowd went, there was a 
barbecue and speeches, and they had a grand time. 
About a week later the railroad gave the Lake City 
people an excursion to Jacksonville, and a maiden of 



54 Highways and Byways of Florida 

the former place, bearing a pitcher of water from Lake 
De Soto at her end of the railroad, mingled it with a 
pitcher of water from the St. Johns River carried by a 
Jacksonville lass. 

At the beginning of the Civil War lumbering had 
become an important industry in the vicinity, and 
Jacksonville was without a rival in its shipment of 
Florida produce. A small Confederate force held the 
city until March, 1862, when three United States 
gunboats and several lesser vessels came up the river. 
The Confederates retreated to the interior, and the 
place was peacefully surrendered by the city author- 
ities. According to the Federals they found many 
smoldering ruins of mills and other buildings, but the 
Confederates declared that this destruction was the 
work of the invaders. Announcement was made that 
the place would be permanently held by the national 
forces, and a meeting of citizens repudiated the ordi- 
nance of secession. Yet in less than a month the troops 
were withdrawn. Many of the inhabitants who had 
declared their allegiance to the Union feared to remain, 
and were given transportation to the North. 

In the autumn Jacksonville was again occupied for 
a short time by the Federals. They came for a third 
time early the following spring. The troops on this 
occasion were negroes who had lately been slaves. 
Three transports convoyed by a gunboat brought them 
up the river. There was no opposition, and when the 
transports made fast to the wharves the men jumped 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 55 

ashore without waiting for the gang-plank. The 
townspeople were much alarmed by the arrival of the 
negro soldiers, but no serious trouble developed. 

A considerable body of Confederates was encamped 
about eight miles to the westward. One day they 
mounted a gun on a platform car and ran it down the 
track within range of the city. Several buildings were 
struck by shells from the gun. The Federal com- 
mander went out with a reconnoltering party and lost 
a number of men in a brush with the enemy. After a 
stay of only three weeks the Union troops again aban- 
doned the city. In the confusion of departure a mania 
for firing buildings developed among the stragglers and 
camp followers. The fleet steamed away leaving the 
place in flames, which, fanned by a high wind, almost 
destroyed the town. 

In February, 1864, the Federals were back, this 
time with ten thousand troops, and the intention to 
secure complete control of the peninsula by marching 
along the railroad from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. 
The Confederates had promptly evacuated the former 
place and withdrawn fifty miles west to the vicinity 
of Olustee. There they threw up earthwork defenses 
where the railroad was crossed by a swampy creek 
with a lake on one side and piney woods on the other. 
Protracted rains had filled the lowlands with water so 
that they were nearly Impassable. At noon on the 
20th of the month the Federal advance neared Olustee 
and marched Into a trap. The mud and water that 



56 Highways and Byways of Florida 

were in the woods for miles along the railroad, and the 
jungle of palmetto scrub had caused the omission of 
any adequate scouting, and the first notice the Feder- 
als had of danger was a scathing discharge of bullets 
from an invisible foe. A line of battle was formed, and 
a spirited fire was returned, but It was Impossible to 
get at the enemy on account of the morass. Regiment 
after regiment moved forward, exhausted Its ammu- 
nition Into the screen of pine and palmetto, and fell 
back leaving a heavy percentage of dead and dying. 
Late in the afternoon the Confederates assumed the 
offensive, and the Federals retreated. The victors had 
captured five hundred prisoners and two thousand 
small-arms, and Inflicted a loss In killed, wounded, and 
missing of a fifth of their opponent's men. This was 
the most important Florida battle in the war. The 
whole field of action can be seen from the car window 
a mile east of Olustee. 

Jacksonville, whose Inhabitants now numbered 
scarcely more than one hundred, remained in Union 
hands until peace was declared. Its growth since has 
been notably rapid. It prospers because of its ad- 
mirable location, with railroads and steamship lines 
that make It the gateway to the larger part of the state. 
The greatest event in its recent history was a terrible 
conflagration In May, 1901, that wiped out the prin- 
cipal part of it. Six hundred and fifty acres were 
burned over, and nearly three thousand buildings 
destroyed, entailing a property loss of fifteen million 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 57 

dollars. But a much finer city has arisen from the 
ashes, and it has become the Florida metropolis with 
a population that is nearing one hundred thousand. 
It is the largest orange market in the world. The 
streets are pleasantly shaded by immense live oaks 
and other trees. There are a number of bathing re- 
sorts on the Atlantic coast within reach of the city, and 
among its suburban attractions is an ostrich farm. 

When one starts from Jacksonville on a voyage up 
the river he soon leaves behind the city uproar, the 
skyscrapers and drawbridges and shipping, and is amid 
scenery that has changed little from the days before 
the white men came, when the waters of the river 
were navigated only by the picturesque Indian dugouts 
fashioned by fire and hatchet from a single cypres.s 
log. At Jacksonville the St. Johns is three miles wide, 
and as far as Palatka It continues so broad that the 
shores as seen from the steamer present no very dis- 
tinctive features. 

Back of the swamps that border the stream Is higher 
ground where are attractive villages, groves, and 
farms, but these are for the most part beyond the voy- 
ager's sight. Occasionally he gets a glimpse of a road 
that comes down through the sand from a sub-tropical 
wilderness that Is almost primeval. The road ends at 
a long pier that reaches out across the shallows to 
where there is deep water^ which is only near the mid- 
dle of the strearh.^ 

Some years ago "A Florida Housekeeper" wrote to 



58 Highways and Byways of Florida 

a New York newspaper to enlighten the thousands of 
people who each year go up and down the river and 
return North with very little more idea of Florida 
than they had when they came from their homes. Her 
own home was only a stone's throw back from the 
borders of the stream. She says: 

"Our house is on a shell mound a good many feet 
above the water level. These shell mounds are fre- 
quent on the river. Our house Is very comfortable, 
and we live a pleasant life. Cattle can be bought for 
fifteen dollars a head, and live on the food in the woods. 
Our cattle are branded and range for twenty miles. 
We keep the calves at home, and the cows come to 
them every evening. We have about sixty cattle, and 
once in two or three weeks we kill one of them. We 
eat some of the beef while fresh, and corn the rest. 
Chickens we get for thirty cents each. About once a 
week our man kills a wild turkey in the woods near the 
house. About once in two weeks some one of the 
household shoots a deer, and we have venison. Early 
in the morning we send a man with a cast net to the 
river, and he catches about twenty fish. Our hogs 
number about thirty. A grown pig is worth four dol- 
lars. They range the woods and feed on what they 
find. Besides the above list of meats we have quail 
and ducks, pigeons, and bear's meat. Bears sometimes 
help themselves to one or two of our pigs. 

"We had from our garden last year Irish potatoes, 
sweet potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes, peas, 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 59 

turnips, and beets, which the soil yielded with very 
Httle trouble and expense. We also had figs, oranges, 
lemons and citrons, grapes and blackberries, huckle- 
berries, watermelons, peaches, and bananas. We have 
our own corn and hominy, also our own syrup of sugar- 
cane, and our own rice. We have a mule to plough and 
work, and we have a horse for family use. We have 
our watch dog, and ten hunting dogs which keep us in 
venison and game. We have colored servants, and 
they do well. Pine wood for house fires, and oak for 
cooking in a stove is all picked up on the place. We 
sail and drive and walk and are busy early and late. 
" I heard a Northern party remark that they had seen 
no flowers in Florida but pumpkin blossoms. I sup- 
pose some people go through the world with their eyes 
shut; or what shall I suppose with flowers all about 



mer 



?" 



If you are in a village near the St. Johns in the early 
morning you are likely to hear the tinkle of cowbells 
on the street, and you will see the scrub cows of the 
place rambling toward the river. There they wade 
out perhaps several hundred yards into water as deep 
as permits them to stand without swimming. They 
are after the tender leafage of aquatic plants. When 
they have satisfied their appetites they return to the 
shore and repose beneath the live oaks chewing the cud 
of contentment. The cows are particularly fond of 
water hyacinths, and keep them close cropped along 
the borders of such parts of the stream as they frequent. 



6o Highways and Byways of Florida 

These plants everywhere line the river bank, and little 
green rafts of them are continually floating down the 
stream. They are equipped with air bulbs that enable 
them to keep afloat even when separated from their 
moorings. When they blossom in the spring they 
make the margins of the broad river a blue sheen of 
dainty color. On the creeks where they are undis- 
turbed by browsing cattle, or by boats, they crowd the 
surface from shore to shore with serried ranks of their 
green air bulbs, and effectually halt all navigation. 
They are capable of growing on marshy land beside 
the streams, but for the most part are In the water 
where they attain their largest size when floating with- 
out being attached to the bottom. The rosettes formed 
by the blossoms sometimes reach up two feet above 
the water. Within a few years after they had been 
Introduced on the St. Johns for the purpose of beauti- 
fying the stream they threatened to render navigation 
on the river Impossible. Great masses of the plants 
collected along the shores and were shifted by wind 
and current until they formed obstructions extending 
over Its entire breadth, through which even steamers 
could not penetrate. 

As one goes up the river, Mandarin, fifteen miles 
from Jacksonville, Is exceptionally Interesting because 
here Harriet Beecher Stowe made her winter home from 
1868 to 1884. She came south to escape the bitter 
New England weather, and to help educate the colored 
people whom she had done so much to set free. First 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 6i 

she hired an old plantation on the west side of the 
St. Johns near the present village of Orange Park and 
established her son Frederick there as a cotton planter. 
But raising cotton was not a business success and was 
abandoned after a two years' trial. 

Meanwhile, she had been attracted by the charms 
of Mandarin on the other side of the river. Many 
years before, an English colony had settled there in 
the jungle and started orange groves. In a short time 
the scent of the waxy white orange blossoms filled the 
air each spring with rich perfume, and toward the 
year's end the trees were decked with golden fruit. 
Slender lines of docks were built far out across the 
river shallows to where ships could take on cargoes of 
the precious harvest for Northern ports. Along the 
lanes were hedgerows, the gardens bloomed with Eng- 
lish roses and lilies and violets, and ivy climbed over 
the porches. Mrs. Stowe bought a place containing 
two hundred acres. On it was a comfortable cottage, 
five large date palms, an olive tree in full bearing, and 
a fine orange grove of one hundred and fifteen trees 
that in a recent year had yielded fruit that sold on the 
wharf for two thousand dollars. The story-and-a-half 
dwelling stood on a bluff overlooking the St. Johns, 
which is five miles broad at this point. It nestled in 
the shade of a grove of superb moss-hung live oaks, 
round one of which the front piazza was built. Every- 
where about were flowers and singing birds. Northern 
sightseers, attracted by Mrs. Stowe's fame, would 



62 Highways and Byways of Florida 

sometimes land at the wharf, roam over the place, 
pick flowers, and peer into the house through the doors 
and windows. 

There was no railroad nearer than Jacksonville, and 
the family were chiefly dependent on the river steamers 
for keeping In touch with the rest of the world. When 
they wanted to make a land trip they would go in an 
old wagon drawn by a mule, a worn-out patriarch 
named Fly. If any of the darky tribe were behind him 
he would prick up his ears and trot at a decent pace. 
But with the white women and girls in the vehicle he 
was obstinately determined not to put one foot before 
the other one bit faster than he was actually forced to 
do. Down would fiop his ears, down went his head, 
and he crept along contemplatively "looking for all 
the world like a very rough dilapidated old hair trunk 
in a state of locomotion." However, there was one 
accomplishment in which no mule could have been 
better versed than was Fly — he could be trusted to 
stand for any length of time without an attempt to 
move. 

Mandarin prospered until 1886. One noon In Feb- 
ruary of that year the mercury stood at eighty. Winter 
seemed to be past, and the languorous spring had 
apparently arrived. In mid-afternoon clouds drifted 
up from the southwest, and there was much rain. The 
weather turned chilly, and the chill increased until 
late in the day the last of the rain that fell on the tree 
foliage became icicles. These icicles swayed and tin- 



The Saint Jqhns and the Ocklawaha 63 

kled in the nprthwest wind all night, and before morn- 
ing the thermometer had registered fifteen degrees 
above zero. A thousand acres of orange trees at Man- 
darin were frozen, trunk and branches. But the trees 
started up from the roots, and the more courageous 
colonists nursed their orchards back into bearing, only 
to have them cut to the ground hy frost a second time 
about ten years after the other freeze. Most of the 
people moved away, and for a long time tenantless 
houses and gardens overgrown by jungle were numer- 
ous in the vicinity. Mrs. Stowe's house was torn down, 
and its very foundations have been obliterated by the 
tangle of wild verdure which in that climate overuns 
everything so quickly when not repressed. But the live 
oaks with their towering rounded heads still remain. 

Not much more than a dozen miles south of Man- 
darin is Green Cove Springs. The spring that has 
made the place famous is one that discharges three 
thousand gallons every minute at a temperature of 
seventy-eight degrees the year round. The wonderful 
purity of the water and its green mysterious depths 
and reflections are a source of never-ending pleasure. 
■ At the head of deep water navigation is Palatka, 
one of the most important towns of the interior of the 
state. The river here is one mile broad, and is crossed 
by the only vehicle bridge in its entire length. There 
was formerly published at Palatka a newspaper which 
was so noted for its alligator stories that the editor was 
universally known as "Alligator Pratt." 



64 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Near the town is a two thousand acre camphor 
plantation, the only one In the United States. The 
camphor gum is extracted from the leaves and twigs. 

South of Palatka the river is comparatively narrow 
and swift, and so crooked that the distance is twice 
that by rail. The trees on the banks and the flourish- 
ing and unfamiliar vegetation, and the frequent towns 
and villages are now close enough at hand to be inter- 
esting. Sanford, which is probably the best known of 
all the places on this part of the river, is becoming 
celebrated as "The Celery City." When a traveler 
steps off a train there in April he is accosted by a smil- 
ing young woman who says, "Won't you try some of 
our celery?" and proffers a fragrant, tempting stalk 
or two with the remark, "We are very proud of the 
celery we grow here, and want all strangers to know 
how good it is." 

The waters of the upper river and of the numerous 
lakes it links together are teeming with bass, pickerel, 
perch, and other varieties of fish; and in the cooler 
part of the year they are the resort of myriads of ducks 
and snipe. The virgin forests that stretch away on 
either side abound in quail, turkey, and deer, and con- 
tain now and then a bear, wild cat, and panther. 

Palatka is the starting-point of the Ocklawaha 
steamers. They go south twenty-five miles, then turn 
west and enter the old forests of the "dark crooked 
water," which is what the name of the stream means 
in English. The journey ends at Silver Springs, one 




Getting the trotter ready 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 6^ 

hundred and ten miles farther on. Enthusiasts call 
the Ocklawaha "the sweetest water-lane in the world," 
and the voyage through this liquid silent forest aisle is 
full of weird interest. Certainly no trip to Florida is 
complete which does not include an outing on this 
romantic stream with its ever-changing scenes and its 
tonic air laden with the balsamic odors of the forest. 
The voyage is a visit to fairyland. A native of Vermont 
cleared the river of fallen trees, snags, and other ob- 
structions and began to make the Ocklawaha trip with 
passenger steamboats at the close of the Civil War. 
Before that nothing larger than barges propelled by 
poles navigated the stream. 

As the river winds along, it almost doubles on itself 
in places. Often it is so narrow that It Is no more than 
a creek, and the passengers wonder if the boat will not 
be obliged to retreat. But the vessel has been built to 
overcome these difficulties, and while having no more 
than the deck dimensions of a tug makes up In height 
what she lacks in length and width. Besides she has 
a peculiar recessed stern wheel, and double steering 
gear. She turns and twists with the channel, now 
approaching this shore and now that, and sometimes 
running so close to the trees that the branches flap 
against the people In the more exposed deck positions. 
You can seldom see more than a few hundred yards 
ahead, but each turn reveals some new attraction. 
More than nine-tenths of the voyage is through a dense 
growth of partly submerged cypress, and only at a few 



66 Highways and Byways of Florida 

points does dry land approach the channel, but the 
edges of the swift deep stream are defined by the flowers 
and leaves of aquatic plants, among which are the 
familiar lilies, "sitting on their round lily-pads like 
white queens on green thrones." 

One annoyance to sensitive persons on the old-time 
passenger boats was the constant firing of sportmen's 
guns. These guns were in the hands of men who seemed 
to think that the chief end of man is to shoot some- 
thing. They were not shooting to procure food or fur 
or feathers, for the boat kept on its way, and they se- 
cured nothing that they hit. It was an indiscriminate 
killing and maiming without a particle of sympathy 
for the animals of that paradise through which the 
boat was passing. The fusillade spared no living thing 
that showed itself. If a bird was hit and hung head 
downward from a limb with a broken wing, the deed 
was greeted with a chorus of laughter. If an alligator 
was struck the applause redoubled, and the creature's 
dying agonies were found extremely diverting. Several 
shooting accidents to passengers, one of which resulted 
fatally, at last compelled a reform of the abuse. 

Animal life along the river had been nearly extermi- 
nated, but since the use of firearms has been prohibited 
the wild creatures of the swamps have become quite 
fearless. You will see herons, eagles, and other deni- 
zens of the watery forest, and sometimes a timid deer. 
On the partly submerged trunks of trees are numerous 
turtles sunning themselves. There they sit in solemn, 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 67 

silent rows until the steamer draws near, and then they 
plunge into the water and swim away under the sur- 
face. But the creature which arouses the most interest 
is the alligator. To lie all day on a log or on the bank 
basking in the sunshine seems to be the ideal of its 
existence. The hotter the day the more alligators are 
visible. Several are sure to be seen on any day when 
the weather is warm, and half a hundred are sighted 
sometimes. The largest are fully twelve feet long. 
Most of them slide into the water with surprising 
nimbleness as the boat approaches, but there are those 
who refuse to budge. 

Besides furnishing pleasure to tourists, the Ockla- 
waha is something of a commercial highway. From 
far back on the gently rising uplands that lie beyond 
the swampy shores of the river come flatboats loaded 
to the water's edge with crates of oranges. They are 
propelled down dark lagoons and sinuous creeks till 
they arrive at the river, where the accommodating 
steamer stops to take their freight on board. You may 
also encounter a raft that is being navigated to a saw- 
mill by a couple of negroes. At long intervals there is 
a clearing with orange groves and a house or two, and 
there are remains of former lumber camps, and a few 
landings where you may see an occasional human 
being. 

The latter part of the Ocklawaha journey is made 
at night, and it is then that the river is seen most im- 
pressively after a lire of pine knots has been kindled 



68 Highways and Byways of Florida 

in a big iron box on the top of the pilot-house. This 
blazes finely, and the light from the resinous yellow 
flames advances up the dark sinuosities of the stream 
in a manner that is enchantingly mysterious. The 
foliage which it touches is magically green, the festoon- 
ing mosses are transformed to silvered garlands, the 
tree trunks turn to corrugated gold, and the black 
slimy stumps become jeweled pillars. When the fire 
dies down a little the distant scenery becomes indistinct 
and shadowy, and the great trees are pallid and ghostly. 
Then fresh knots are thrown in, the fire blazes up, and 
again the winding forest walls are brightly lighted 
amid the impenetrable surrounding mirk, while every- 
thing is reflected in the smooth water. 

It is hard enough for the boat to twist and squeeze 
herself along the river in broad daylight, and naviga- 
tion is doubly difficult at night. Sometimes there is 
a scraping of limbs and twigs along the sides of the 
vessel, and she halts with a sudden thump. A little 
bell tinkles, and the motion of the engine ceases. In 
rounding a sharp curve the boat has run her nose 
smash into the bank. Then the colored deck hands 
get busy with their poles, and push until the bow is 
swung out into the stream. Again the wheel turns, 
and the little vessel puffs calmly onward. The river 
damp wraps all things in grateful coolness, and the 
boat glides forward into filmy mists out of which fly 
startled birds into the bright light, and after an instant 
of illuminated flight vanish into the darkness. Can 



! 




A Cracker'' s home 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 69 

you wonder that some travelers remain on deck until 
morning to enjoy the fascinating revelation of the 
marvels of "The Mysterious River" as the vessel 
swings on around the curves through the mazes of this 
Southern forest? 

The last nine miles of the voyage is on Silver Spring 
Run, and the change from the dark brown water of the 
Ocklawaha to the crystal transparency of the Run is 
almost startling. The Run has a white bottom, and, 
though very deep, the darting fish and the waterweeds 
are revealed with amazing clearness. For much of the 
way on either side the shores are grassy levels beyond 
which is cypress and oak woodland. The journey ends 
in the diminutive lake of Silver Springs. These springs 
are one of the wonders of the world. They are the 
outlet of an underground river that daily discharges 
three hundred million gallons of water, and are con- 
tained in a number of limestone basins. The largest 
basin is about eighty-five feet deep by two hundred 
wide. The water rushes upward through dark fissures 
in the rock, keeping the beds of white sand at the bot- 
tom of the springs in constant agitation. It is hard 
water and not good to drink, but so clear that the 
bottom is distinctly visible. If you row out on the lake 
you marvel that such an unseeable water can support 
anything so substantial as the boat you are in. It 
seems more like atmosphere than water, and you fancy 
that you could walk about down below and not get 
wet. Every pebble and aquatic plant you glide over is 



70 Highways and Byways of Florida 

invested with prismatic brightness, and a fish near the 
bottom will cast a shadow when the sun is shining. 

These are the most famous springs in Florida, per- 
haps because they are the most accessible, for there 
are others that are not unworthy rivals, each with 
some charm peculiar to itself that leaves the visitor in 
doubt as to which should be ranked first in beauty. 
There are five principal openings through which the Sil- 
ver Springs issue near the spring head. Others occur 
at intervals along the Run. At one of them, known as 
"The Boneyard," about two miles down the stream, 
have been discovered the bones of whales and the pet- 
rified remains of a marine monster ninety feet long and 
five feet in diameter. Along the river are many Indian 
mounds that contain ornamental and useful imple- 
ments of stone and copper. 

Twenty miles west of Ocala is the charming Blue 
Spring, three hundred and fifty feet wide. It Is sur- 
rounded by an amphitheater of blufi"s which are cov- 
ered with a fine growth of magnolia, hickory, live oak, 
and other trees. The stranger who looks into Its clear 
bluish water from the bank cannot be convinced that 
the basin is deeper than three or four feet. A favor- 
ite pastime among the newly-arrived Is to estimate 
the depth, and then paddle out and reach down with 
an oar. The actual depth Is at least twenty-five feet. 
Much of the spring's peculiar beauty is derived from 
the wonderful vegetation that grows in endless variety 
of color and form along the rocky dykes and sand-bars 



The Saint Johns and the Ocklawaha 71 

of the bottom. To float on the invisible water above 
those fairy bowers is an experience never to be for- 
gotten. 

The water flows away In a considerable stream that 
can be descended by either steam-launch or row-boat, 
six miles, to Dunnellon. The voyage Is a series of 
surprises. At intervals there are deep rocky chasms 
through which volumes of water force their way up- 
ward, and other springs burst from the banks. Some 
of the latter are utilized to turn water-wheels. The 
lower reaches of the stream are bordered by a cypress 
swamp, and are frequented by garfish, turtles, and 
alligators. 



IV 

THE EAST COAST AND THE INDIAN RIVER 

THE Florida east coast is one of the most note- 
worthy of the world's playgrounds. Thither 
go tens of thousands of winter tourists every 
year, and thither go a host of families who have built 
cottages, mansions, and palaces in which they make 
their homes during the colder months. Such dwellings 
line the coast almost continuously from one end to the 
other. 

The chief attraction is climate. The winter is mild, 
foggy or rainy days are exceptional, sunshine predom- 
inates, and there is sea bathing the year through. Even 
the summers are tolerable. They are long, to be sure, 
but the heat is not so extreme as one would expect, 
and the nights are seldom uncomfortable. 

A peculiar feature of the coast is that the mainland 
nearly everywhere lies back of salt water lagoons and 
a series of narrow islands that protect it from the 
ocean's rude waves and wild winds, and afford for small 
craft an inside route of sheltered navigation. One of 
the few stretches of coast that abut directly on the 
sea is the forty miles between the mouth of the St Johns 
River and St. Augustine Inlet. It is an unbroken beach 

72 



The East Coast and the Indian River 73 

forty miles long, backed by scrub-covered sandhills, 
and strewn with the wreckage of centuries. For walk- 
ing, driving, or automobiling no roadway made by 
human hands can excel this superb beach during the 
hours when the tide is not at its highest. 

But the most famous piece of Florida beach is one 
of similar length extending from Matanzas Inlet to 
Mosquito Inlet, particularly the southern half beyond 
Ormond. It is the hardest, smoothest, broadest beach 
imaginable. During the winter it is traversed by motor 
vehicles of all kinds, and here the racing cars break the 
world's speed records. It makes an ideal roadway, 
and this is renewed twice daily by the outgoing tide. 
A peculiar pleasure vehicle used on the beach is the 
"sand-sailer." It resembles an ice yacht on wheels. 
The beach is on the ocean side of a narrow peninsula 
that is partly clothed with hardwood forest, and partly 
with the ordinary beach growth of saw palmetto. On 
the other side is a slender shallow arm of the sea about 
twenty-five miles long known as the Halifax River. 
This is the home of billions of oysters, and on these 
the aborigines fed from time Immemorial as Is evidenced 
by the great heaps of shells found along the banks. 
Some of the heaps are miniature hills, and even though 
shells from the mounds have been employed In making 
scores of miles of roadway there has been no applicable 
diminution in the supply. Such mounds are distrib- 
uted very evenly along the greater length of the eastern 
seaboard. The shells are of various sorts, but those 



74 Highways and Byways of Florida 

of oysters predominate, and mingled sparsely with the 
shells are bones of fish and fowl, of turtle, alligator, 
and deer. 

That charming stream, the Tomoka River, joins 
the Halifax at Ormond. It afi"ords a delightful excur- 
sion by power launch or by the daily steamer. The 
navigable portion winds inland for a dozen miles in 
long easy curves between wooded banks whence pal- 
mettos and live oaks reach out from the jungle over 
the water. An occasional alligator will be sighted on 
the shore. 

A little below Ormond Is another well-known resort 
town, Daytona, which stands on a hammock ridge 
that averages two miles wide and stretches southerly 
for sixty miles. 

A short distance south of Mosquito Inlet is New 
Smyrna, the oldest settlement on the Atlantic coast 
south of St. Augustine. Here are numerous ruins 
attributed to the Spaniards, but concerning which 
nothing definite is known. Authentic history begins 
in 1767 when Dr. Andrew Turnbull, an English gentle- 
man of fortune, undertook the task of draining the 
low hammocks back of New Smyrna and making their 
rich soil fit for cultivation. He organized a syndicate, 
procured a grant of sixty thousand acres, and then 
sailed to the Mediterranean where he induced a large 
number of families, most of them dwellers on the 
Spanish Island of Minorca, to emigrate to Florida. 
In all, the colonists numbered fifteen hundred. Free 



The East Coast and the Indian River 75 

transportation, good food, and clothing were guaran- 
teed, and if any were dissatisfied at the end of six 
months they were to be sent home. Those who re- 
mained and worked for three years were to receive 
fifty acres for each family and twenty-five acres for 
each child. The voyage proved long, and many died 
on the passage, but the survivors began work courage- 
ously. They built palmetto huts for the approaching 
winter and planted crops that yielded excellent returns 
in early spring. On one of the shell mounds TurnbuU 
erected his "castle," which is said to have been a solid 
structure capable of effective defense. As soon as he 
made certain that the colony was secure against hun- 
ger, he planted indigo. He had three thousand acres 
of it in 1772. 

Success seemed assured, but the management of 
affairs was left to agents who inaugurated a system 
of oppression that developed Into slavery. Only two 
years after the colonists came, there was an insurrection 
on account of the severe punishments inflicted, and a 
number of the dissatisfied attempted to escape. They 
seized several small craft, fitted them out from the 
company's stores, and were about to embark for 
Havana when a detachment of English soldiers appeared 
and intercepted the flight. The leaders were arrested 
and convicted of various alleged crimes. One was 
found guilty of shooting a cow, an offense at that time 
punishable by death. Altogether five were judged 
to merit the death penalty, but two were pardoned, 



76 Highways and Byways of Florida 

and a third was offered clemency on condition that 
he act as executioner. To quote the account of one 
of the jurors: "Long and obstinate was the struggle 
in this man's mind. He repeatedly called out that he 
chose to die rather than be the executioner of his 
friends In distress. At length the entreaties of the 
victims themselves encouraged him to act. Now we 
beheld a man, thus compelled, take leave of his friends 
in the most moving manner, kissing them the moment 
before he committed them to an ignominious death." 
By 1776 only six hundred of the colonists were left. 
They held secret meetings, and a plan was concocted 
for getting relief. Three of the bolder spirits obtained 
a leave of absence to catch turtles. But instead they 
tramped up the coast, swam Matanzas Inlet, and 
reached St. Augustine. There they appealed to the 
governor to protect their countrymen If they came 
thither. This he agreed to do, and they made their 
way back to New Smyrna. The able-bodied men 
provided themselves with wooden spears, rations 
were packed for three days, and with the women and 
children in the center the six hundred began their 
march. So secretly was all this managed that they 
had proceeded several miles before their departure was 
discovered. No attempt was made to forcibly detain 
them, and they arrived safely at St. Augustine and 
reported to the governor. He had them provided 
with food, lands were assigned them, and they were 
soon an influential element in the population of the 



^TT- 




Beside ihe Halifax River at Nezv Smyrna 




An off-look on the Indian River 



I 



The East Coast and the Indian River 77 

old town. Some returned later to New Smyrna where 
their descendants are still to be found. 

The drainage canals, half overgrown trenches, and 
crumbling ruins of stone sugar mills and indigo vats 
are all that now remain of Turnbull's enterprise. For 
nearly a generation the place was abandoned, but at 
length a few pioneers made a new start, and by 1835 
some degree of prosperity had been attained. Then 
came the Seminole War, and the inhabitants were 
obliged to seek safety easterly across the Hillsboro 
River and see their homes burned behind them. Even 
after the war Indian alarms continued so frequent 
that in i860 barely twenty-five families were living 
within the present limits of the place. 

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Mosquito 
Inlet offered a tempting haven for blockade-runners, 
and cotton was stored in readiness for them on what 
has since been known as the Cotton-shed Hammock. 
Two United States gunboats came to the inlet to 
break up the rendezvous in March, 1862. A boat 
expedition of forty-three men was sent to reconnoiter, 
The boats were fired on from an earthwork near the 
town, and fifteen of the men were either killed or 
wounded. The survivors took to cover on shore and 
rejoined their ships after nightfall. This rebuff did not 
prevent the destruction of all buildings, wharves, and 
the like that would be of service to blockade-runners. 

On the Cotton-shed Hammock is a piece of truly 
magnificent woodland — live oaks, magnolias, palmettos, 



78 Highways and Byways of Florida 

sweet gums, maples, and hickories, with here and 
there a long-leaved pine overtopping all the rest. This 
wood is given a peculiar tropical character, both by 
the trees themselves and by the profusion of hanging 
moss, ferns, and vines that cling to them. The ferns 
completely cover the upper surface of many of the 
larger branches, while the huge vines twist about the 
trunks or are connected with the tree-tops direct from 
the ground. So dense are the growths on some of the 
Florida hammocks, that, though seldom of great ex- 
tent, one can fancy himself in the midst of limitless 
forest. It may be well to explain that the word ham- 
mock means land whereon hard wood grows. Such 
a growth indicates a soil of greater depth and contain- 
ing more humus than that of the flatwoods or pine- 
lands, and therefore more suitable for cultivation. 

The region offers fine fishing, hunting, boating, and 
bathing, and has the added attraction of extensive 
orange groves. The ocean beach here is without a break 
for one hundred and thirty miles to the south. 

Not far below New Smyrna is the north end of the 
Indian River, and the distance to Jupiter Inlet, its 
other end, is one hundred and'forty miles. The most 
interesting fact about this river is that it is not a river 
at all, but a salt-water sound. This sound is super- 
latively safe, placid, and beautiful. It varies in width 
from scarcely a hundred feet at the Narrows, to eight 
miles, and is so straight that when one looks along 
it north or south, water and sky seem to meet. On 



The East Coast and the Indian River 79 

either side it is fringed by points, harbors, coves, and 
islands. Near the head of the river are large islands 
or peninsulas, and at the St. Lucie and Jupiter narrows 
are innumerable small islands covered with an almost 
impenetrable growth of mangroves and other tropical 
vegetation. It is separated from the ocean by a won- 
derfully attenuated strip of land, portions of which are 
only a few rods wide, and which rarely exceeds the 
width of a mile, and seldom rises to more than twenty 
feet above high water mark. This strip is barren in 
some places, but for the most part is covered with a 
sturdy forest growth that serves as a windbreak to 
curb the fierce gales of the Atlantic. 

The river is fed by numerous fresh-water streams, 
so that though it is connected with the ocean by sev- 
eral inlets through which the tides ebb and flow, it is 
much less salt than the open sea. Not all the inlets 
are permanent. A number have opened within the 
memory of persons now living, and then, after a while, 
have closed. 

Every house along the river has its own pier, and 
every family possesses some sort of water craft. There 
are sailing vessels in great variety, and power boats 
from tiny open launches to ambitious cabined steam 
yachts. The river is a great highway for the dwellers 
on its banks. 

The mainland which borders this "streak of silver 
sea" is notably well suited for residence sites, and the 
soil is unsurpassed for the cultivation of citrus fruits 



8o Highways and Byways of Florida 

and pineapples. The pineapples hide the earth on the 
ridge next to the river for miles and miles with their 
prickly green leaves. In places the plants are under 
slatted sheds acres in extent. They grow from two to 
four feet high and each produces a single fruit amid 
a whorl of long stiff rough-edged sword-shaped leaves. 
The pineapple is a native of tropical America and is 
found wild in sandy maritime districts of northeastern 
South America. Great care is requisite in its cultiva- 
tion to produce fruit that is delicate and richly flavored. 
Without such care it is insipid and fibrous. 

The fertile belt skirting the river is comparatively 
narrow, and much of the country beyond is wilderness 
haunted by bears, panthers, wild cats, and deer, and 
by wild turkeys and the lesser varieties of wild-fowl. 
It is a swampy wilderness containing many streams 
and shallow lakes navigable for canoes. 

When the turtles lay their eggs in the seashore sands 
in the spring of the year the bears resort to the beaches 
and devour the eggs with great gusto. Bruin will even 
swim across the Indian River to get at the eggs on the 
island shore beyond. Only the desire for these eggs 
will tempt the bears to venture from their hiding-places 
back inland, or from the almost impenetrable labyrinths 
of the mangrove islands. The bears have long ago 
learned that a man with a gun is dangerous, and they 
have become exceedingly shy and retiring. If the hun- 
ter wants bears he has to go after them, for they have 
no fancy to go after the hunter. Even when tempted 




Spanish bayonets 




At Palm Beach on the shore oj Lake JVorth 



The East Coast and the Indian River 8i 

out of their wild haunts by turtle eggs they visit the 
shore by night and with such caution that they are 
seldom seen. 

I Eatable fish in great variety abound in the river, 
and there are oysters and clams, shrimp, and turtle. 
Besides, excellent bream and black bass fishing is to 
be had in the fresh water streams that enter the river 
from the mainland. The Florida cruiser need never 
go hungry, even when his supply of "boughten grub" 
fails, if only he has the knowledge and skill to help 
himself from nature's largess. 

An expedition in a small boat after dark is particularly 
enjoyable. The water is usually highly phosphores- 
cent then, and at times the display of nature's fireworks 
is quite wonderful. Multitudes of fish dash against 
the boat, and sometimes leap over or into it in frantic 
efforts to escape. 

Oysters cover a considerable portion of the river 
bottom, and though they are often small they are un- 
surpassed in quality. In some places along the banks 
are enormous piles of the oyster shells deposited there 
by the Indians, who, whatever their faults, have at least 
given the Florida peninsula a few hills. How they must 
have feasted to leave such heaps of shells behind them! 
The red men are gone, but the oyster-beds remain, and 
if the winter refugees continue to flock to the region and 
to eat oysters freely, in the course of time the vicinity 
of the resorts will become a fine mountainous country. 
Meanwhile tourists and residents must find what com- 



82 Highways and Byways of Florida 

fort they can in such hills as the good appetite of their 
predecessors have already furnished. 

The climate along the river from October to May is 
a perpetual Indian summer, seldom interrupted by 
storms; and most of the time there is a gentle breeze 
coming inland from the even tempered waters of the 
Gulf Stream. One proof offered of the winter bland- 
ness of the air is that frequenters of the region, both 
male and female, sometimes bathe the old year out and 
the new year in. 

It is a delight merely to view the river from the shore. 
As you look off across the blue water from the mainland 
you see the islands dim in dreamy haze on the other 
side. Schools of fishes flash their silvery sides to the 
sun in the shallows; farther out frolicsome mullet leap 
high into the air and fall back with a resounding splash; 
herons large and small stand and meditate In or near 
the water; and cormorants, black and ungainly, sit on 
piles of abandoned docks for hours motionless, or, If 
one makes a plunge for a fish, he promptly flops back 
to his perch. During the winter the river Is a resort 
for innumerable ducks. In places the surface Is fairly 
covered by them, and a boat voyaging on the river will 
make flocks rise from the water every few hundred 
yards to travel off and settle down elsewhere. The peli- 
can, with Its big bill, awkward figure, and voracious 
appetite, Is a familiar bird here, but lacks one essential 
attraction for the sportsman — Its flesh is too tough and 
the taste too rank to be eatable. 



The East Coast and the Indian River 83 

One of the curious inhabitants of the waters, especially 
near the mouth of the St. Lucie River, is the manatee 
or sea cow. It has in part the character of a fish, and 
in part that of a land animal. It is warm-blooded and 
suckles its young, and yet lives in the water, though 
obliged to come to the surface every few minutes to 
breath. This necessity is apt to prove its undoing when 
a hunter is in pursuit. A full sized one is a monstrous 
ungainly creature that measures a dozen feet in length 
and weighs over a ton. It is seldom found except in or 
near the rivers that indent the southern coast. The 
vegetation that grows In the streams is its food. 

You may sometimes hear beneath the water a strange 
low thumping sound as of the beating of a muffled drum. 
It is the love-song of the drum fish. These fish feed on 
young oysters, cockles, and crabs. They travel in 
schools, and several hundred of them can do an amazing 
amount of damage to an oyster bed. Some of them 
weigh as much as seventy pounds, although a third 
of that is more usual. 

In the northern part of the river Is Merrltts Island, 
forty miles long and, at its upper end, six or seven miles 
broad. The country on the island has the appearance 
of a park, the timber bring principally scattered pines 
interspersed with an occasional forest of palmetto, or of 
live oak and other hardwood timber. The island con- 
tains some of the finest and oldest of Florida orange 
groves. 

Over on the opposite mainland is Titusville, of which 



84 Highways and Byways of Florida 

a tourist records that the following romantic and uncon- 
ventional custom of hunting prevailed as recently as 
1890. Every night while he was there the proprietor of 
one of the largest hotels, and other sensible business men, 
sallied out with conch horn and dogs to pursue possums 
In the neighboring pine woods. They started from the 
center of the town, and as they went on toward the 
outskirts the party was constantly receiving fresh re- 
cruits, who brought with them more dogs and horns, 
and ere long the air was thrilled with the blasts they 
blew as they struck the trail of a possum. 

A place farther down the Indian River with a char- 
acter of its own is Rockledge. The appropriateness of 
the name is evident when one observes that the shore 
for three or four miles is coralline rock that rises ab- 
ruptly to a height of from six to twelve feet. 

One of the most charming streams of this vicinity 
is the St. Lucie River with its abounding palmettos. 
Many of these trees are close to the water's edge, and 
some have lopped down till they are half submerged and 
furnish Ideal places for rows of turtles to sun them- 
selves. There the turtles sit in solemn silence, but 
when a boat comes along they plunge beneath the 
surface with much splashing. 

The finest fishing on the coast Is to be had at Jupiter 
Inlet. The beach on either side of the Inlet is strewn 
with sun-dried sponges, sea-beans, cocoanuts, and nu- 
merous strange forms of animal and vegetable life 
brought from the tropic seas by the Gulf Stream, 



The East Coast and the Indian River 85 

whose dark waters may be seen a few miles off shore. 
The floating treasures are deflected to the coast by 
easterly gales. In this vicinity is an oyster shell mound 
forty feet high and a quarter of a mile long. During 
the Civil War adventurous blockade runners that passed 
out through Jupiter Inlet made flying trips to the Bur- 
mudas and the West Indies Islands. The safety with 
which they went and came was largely due to the fact 
that they had their own code of signals arranged with 
the inlet lighthouse people. 

The next slender coast lagoon beyond the Indian 
River is Lake Worth, twenty-two miles long, and with 
an average width of a mile. It is connected with the 
ocean by a single shallow inlet. The normal winter 
temperature of the vicinity is about seventy-five de- 
grees. The eastern shore is the favored garden region 
of the lake, for it Is protected from ocean gales by the 
heavily wooded peninsula, and the marvelously rich 
soil fosters the growth of fruits, flowers, and vege- 
tables. From nearly every house here a walk or trail 
leads across the ridge to the ocean beach, where a mag- 
nificent warm surf comes rushing In from the Gulf 
Stream laden with shells and marine curiosities that 
tempt collectors to wander for miles along the sands 
searching for treasures. After an easterly storm the 
beach is sure to be particularly Interesting In its accumu- 
lation of waifs and wreckage. 

Palm Beach, the best known of all Florida resorts, 
is on this sandy peninsula, which only a few years ago 



86 Highways and Byways of Florida 

was an almost barren waste. Now Palm Beach is a 
national institution with a reputation that is world- 
wide. It is often called the "millionares' playground." 
Here is the largest hotel for tourists in existence, six 
stories high, and nearly a fifth of a mile long, with ac- 
commodation for two thousand people. One of the hotel's 
features is a corridor lined with fashionable shops. The 
people who throng it include not only those from every 
part of our own country, but, in normal times, many for- 
eign diplomats and persons of wealth from abroad. 

Palm Beach is a gem in a jungle. There are those, 
however, to whom the jungle Is the gem rather than 
what man's Imagination and labor have produced in a 
fashionable resort. Wilderness merging into the Ever- 
glades begins to the westward almost with the lake 
shore, and large game Is found throughout the region. 

The Palm Beach that human ingenuity has brought 
into being is a tropical paradise. Unlimited wealth has 
conveyed thither warm-climate trees and shrubs from 
the ends of the earth and set them in bewildering pro- 
fusion. In January, 1879, a Spanish bark was cast away 
on the coast, and her cargo of cocoanuts was distributed 
by the waves for miles up and down the beach. Thou- 
sands of the nuts were picked up and planted with the 
hope, rather than the expectation, that they would grow. 
The planting consisted of laying the nuts on the ground 
in rows, In circles, singly and in groups, with the result 
that now the cocoa palm trees lift their graceful fronds 
above every roof, and line the walks and avenues of the 



The East Coast and the Indian River 87 

entire vicinity with the gray columns of their trunks, 
and stand in stately swaying rows along the shore. 
Of all the alien trees they are the most distinguished. 
At maturity a tree will bear two hundred nuts a year. 
The ungarnered nuts strew the ground and you can pick 
up one when you choose, beat off the husk, bore a 
hole in the one soft spot at the stem end of the shell, 
and drink the cool delicious milk. Young fruit is con- 
stantly starting, and nuts are coming to maturity and 
falling all through the year. 

Palm Beach is essentially a society resort, and practi- 
cally all the social activities are out of doors. The offi- 
cial day begins at eleven, when a multitude of people 
assemble on the beach, and everywhere are color and 
movement. The whirl of gayety continues until late 
in the night. The three months from New Years to 
April are the height of the season. 

One of the institutions of the place is the Beach Club, 
famous for Its restaurant, but principally for its gam- 
bling. No man under twenty-five is admitted to mem- 
bership, and occasionally a person of great wealth, whom 
you would naturally expect to be welcomed. Is rejected; 
but an action of this kind now and then only makes 
the demand for admission more insistent. 

The chief place south of Palm Beach is the ''Magic 
City," Malml, at the mouth of a little river of the same 
name that flows down to the sea from the Everglades. 
It is on the site of old Fort Dallas, which was a consid- 
erable military post in the Seminole War, established 



88 Highways and Byways of Florida 

in 1838 and abandoned twenty years later. Miami con- 
sisted of several houses and a store in 1895. T^^^ store 
was essentially an Indian trading station where the Sem- 
inoles bartered alligator hides and such other trophies 
of their rifles as were not needed for home consumption. 
It was not uncommon to have two or three canoes 
moored to the wharf with an indefinite number of 
squaws and papooses on board together with a supply 
of fresh meat in the shape of turtles and a live pig or 
two. The river can be ascended in small boats to its 
outlet from the Everglades, about six miles from 
where it enters Biscayne Bay. 

The bay is a lagoon protected from the ocean by nu- 
merous coral islands. A two and a half mile mile bridge, 
the longest roadway bridge in the world, connects Miami 
Beach with the mainland. 

Occasional stretches of beach along the bay afford 
good walking. On one of these beaches, about a dozen 
miles south of Miami and a half mile north of Shoal 
Point, is a bed of "singing sand" that emits a musical 
sound under foot. Another marvel of the bay is a spring 
of fresh water that wells up off the southeast coast from 
the salty ocean. All that a thirsty mariner has to do 
to supply himself and his companions with drinking 
water, is to dip it up at this spot. 



V 

KEY WEST AND ITS SEA-GOING RAILWAY 

THERE are three tropical regions in the United 
States. One is along the Colorado River in 
the neighborhood of Yuma; another is in that 
part of Texas near the mouth of the Rio Grande; 
and the third, which is by far the most extensive and 
attractive, is the southernmost section of Florida. Es- 
pecially tropical are the islands which extend in a 
curved line to Key West and beyond for two hundred 
miles through the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. 
These islands, or keys as they are called, are protected 
from the rudeness of the ocean by a line of reefs, which 
come close to the surface and break the force of the 
waves. The reefs are exceedingly dangerous to ship- 
ping, but Hawk Channel, the stretch of water between 
them and the keys, is the most ideal sailing ground for 
pleasure craft imaginable. 

The islands and adjacent reefs are primarily the 
work of tiny soft-bodied polyps. The lime the polyps 
secrete forms a part of their persons, and is a kind of 
skeleton which they outgrow and leave behind in the 
shape of solid coral. In former ages these creatures 
worked far to the north of their present habitat. Now 



90 Highways and Byways of Florida 

they are found in Florida only at the edge of the Gulf 
Stream. There they are still extracting lime from the 
sea-water, and covering the ocean bed with a forest of 
branches in which all sorts of sea plants and animals 
become entangled and in the course of time are en- 
tombed. The workers stop building only when they 
reach the sea-level at low tide, and then the ocean 
piles up broken coral and other loose material on the 
reef. Some day a mangrove seedling drifts into the 
shallows and finds lodgment when the tide falls. Be- 
fore next high water its rootlets have anchored it by 
penetrating the crevices of the lime rock prepared 
by the coral polyps. Other mangrove seedlings fol- 
low this pioneer, and in a few years the bare reef be- 
comes a mangrove key, collecting the flotsam and 
jetsam of the ocean to form habitable land. When the 
mangroves can no longer reach salt water they die and 
add their quota to the rich top-dressing of the coral. 
After that the winds and tides and currents bring 
cocoanuts, pine cones, acorns, and the like. Thus, in 
the course of time, the key is covered with vegetation 
and is ready to be made the home of human beings. 
It is estimated that solid coral will build up at the rate 
of six inches a century. Another six inches will be 
added on exposed reefs in accumulations of material 
contributed by the ocean. Therefore the present outer 
reef, which is in water about seventy feet deep, has 
been seven thousand years in building. 

The keys are always highest on the seaward side, 



Key West and Its Sea-Going Railway 91 

and slope gradually toward the mainland. This sur- 
face is generally less than ten feet above sea-level. 
Many of them are awash when there is a high spring 
tide, or a strong wind setting shoreward. Others, how- 
ever, are capable of cultivation and make delightful 
sites for winter residences, well south of the frost line, 
and readily accessible. The surface is mostly coral 
rock, but in the hollows are patches of rich red soil 
and humus, in which fruits and vegetables grow with 
great luxuriance. Fully fifty of the islands are at 
present inhabited and productive. Many delect- 
able things grow on the keys, but so do the weeds. One 
of the worst of these weeds is the grapevines. Unless 
a planter is Industrious in fighting the predatory 
growths his plantation is soon overrun by their 
ravenous hordes. 

Along the ocean side shore are coral sand, masses 
of broken coral fingers, shells, sponges, and drift ma- 
terial which has been carried hundreds of miles from 
the coasts of South and Central America. Floating 
islands from the mouths of tropical rivers are one of 
the strange things that drift to the keys, to be dashed 
to bits there by the waves and piled up on the shore. 
The varied flotage, including lumber and wreckage, 
often makes beach combing a very interesting and 
profitable employment. 

The natives of the keys came from England by way 
of the Bahamas. They are called "Conchs." In the 
main they devote themselves to wrecking, sponging, 



92 Highways and Byways of Florida 

and fishing. When there is nothing doing on the sea 
they cut hardwood timber on a patch of land, and burn 
it. Then they plant pineapples. No fertilizer is used, 
and after a few years the field is abandoned and al- 
lowed to grow up again to forest. Few of the keys 
have roads. The people visit and go to school and to 
church in boats. They are very pious, but religious 
services are postponed if a wreck off^ers opportunity 
for profit. 

Within a few years after Columbus made his first 
voyage across the Atlantic the Florida Keys began to 
levy tribute on European commerce. The Inclination 
of the exposed trees on them shows the commonness 
of high winds; and so intricate are their channels, and 
so powerful the sweep of currents among them, that 
the long line of coral islands, rocks, and reefs soon 
earned the name of "The Martyrs." They keep up 
their reputation to this day, in spite of the lighthouses 
and beacons that now mark the channel from Biscayne 
Bay to the Dry Tortugas. The navigable channels 
and safe harbors among the islands were well known 
to the old-time pirates and freebooters. It is popularly 
supposed that the fishermen, spongers, and wreckers 
of to-day are also pirates when opportunity favors, 
and that they employ cruel and cowardly methods to 
lure vessels to the dreaded reefs that they may plunder 
the cargoes and rob the crews and passengers; but, 
though there are doubtless desperate characters among 
them, they have a wholesome fear of the revenue 



Key West and its Sea-Going Railway 93 

service, and really do good work in saving the cargoes 
of stranded ships, and sometimes in floating off the 
vessels. When a ship runs ashore, the Conchs for miles 
around know of it in a mysteriously short time. If 
the ship is large she is soon surrounded by a solid mass 
of white-winged wreckers. 

One of the West Indian hurricanes has been known 
to drive ashore no less than three hundred craft big 
and small. A certain wrecking-master of Key West 
has realized as much as a thousand dollars a day for 
a period of more than two weeks for his attentions to 
a wreck. Over half the wealth of that place is said to 
come directly or indirectly from wrecks. 

Key Largo, the largest of the keys, is thirty miles 
long, and from a quarter of a mile to two miles wide. 
Mahogany grows in the thick tropical jungle on the 
island as common as maple in New York state. One 
peculiar tree found here is the gumbo-limbo, which 
will sprout after being cut into fence posts and produce 
vigorous trees. The houses of the natives are on the 
ocean side. Around them are fields of pineapples, 
groves of limes, and numerous cocoanut palms and 
banana plants. 

The banana plant came originally from southern 
Asia, and was probably brought to America soon after 
the days of Columbus. It is a marvel in its prolific 
bearing. The fruit is very nutritious, and in some 
countries is the chief article of food for whole popu- 
lations. It has been estimated that land sufficient to 



94 Highways and Byways of Florida 

grow wheat enough to feed one man would feed five 
men if devoted to bananas. A plant produces only 
one bunch of fruit, but there are sometimes as many 
three hundred bananas in a single bunch. No wonder 
then, that a West Indian negro with a patch of ba- 
nanas no larger than a dooryard is content to live in 
idleness. The soft but tree-like stalk grows to a height 
of from ten to thirty feet, and some of the broad shining 
green leaves are two or three yards long. The plants 
put forth their first blossoms when not much more 
than a year old. After fruiting, the stem is cut down, 
but new stems sprout up from the roots. The plants 
will bear a slight frost, and they are occasionally culti- 
vated as far north as Jacksonville. 

In summer, when the fragrant limes are ready to 
pick on the keys, the mosquitoes are present in such 
numbers and with such a ravenous appetite for blood 
as language is inadequate to describe. They come by 
millions out of every crevice in the rocks, out of the 
ground, and out of mudholes and stagnant pools. 
When they become unbearable, the native men and 
women put their children, dogs, and chickens on their 
boats and move off to sea. 

Long Key calls for special mention because of its 
fame as a fishing resort. Everybody there is interested 
in fishing, and that sport is the leading topic of conver- 
sation. Each evening they gather at the docks to in- 
spect the catches as the boats return, and to hear the 
stories of the day's experience. All the fish are weighed 



Key West and its Sea-Going Railway 95 

as they are unloaded to see whose catch is the largest, 
and afterward the names of the men who made the 
best catches are posted on a bulletin board. 

The animal life of the keys and the waters in their 
vicinity is wonderfully varied and interesting. Fish 
abound, from the sea monsters that weigh hundreds 
of pounds down to the delicate and beautiful angel- 
fish and the many-colored dwellers among the man- 
grove roots. Turtles are taken in large numbers, many 
water-fowl nest along shore, and bears, wild cats, deer, 
and turkeys haunt the wooded keys. 

It Is of interest to note that on a trip from New York 
to the keys by rail the traveler is only two-thirds of 
the distance when he reaches Jacksonville. The journey 
from Miami to Key West is by the world's first sea- 
going railway, one hundred and fifty miles long, which 
cost upward of one hundred thousand dollars a mile. 
It skirts along the coast for twenty-eight miles below 
Miami, before it leaves land solid enough to be called 
mainland. Fully seventy-five miles of the track the 
rest of the way are over the water. The islands that 
are utilized by the railroad number about thirty. They 
may be called a series of stepping-stones. The longest 
stretch of track on any one island is sixteen miles on 
Key Largo. Whenever the water between islands was 
sufficiently shallow they have been united by rock 
abutments. Across the channels that were deep or 
exposed to storms arched concrete viaducts were built, 
or steel bridges resting on concrete piers, which are 



g6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

firmly anchored to the bed rock. Some of the water 
spanned has a depth of more than thirty feet, and the 
traveler has the unique sensation of voyaging over 
ocean waves in a swift railway coach. The longest 
viaduct is seven miles between Knights Key and Little 
Duck Key. 

While the road was being built the problem of feed- 
ing and housing the laborers was solved by establishing 
camps on the keys, and by constructing numerous 
floating dormitories which were moved forward along 
with the dredges, pile-drivers and other machinery. 
The road was begun In 1905, and the next year in 
October came a great hurricane that cost the lives of 
one hundred and thirty men. One of the two-story 
floating dormitories was torn from its moorings at 
Long Key, driven across the Hawk Channel, and 
smashed on a reef. Of the one hundred and forty-five 
men In it eighty-seven were picked up clinging to bits 
of wreckage. But this disaster did not prevent work 
being resumed as soon as the sea was calm. The first 
through train reached Key West in January, 1912, and 
went on by the huge car ferry that conveys trains 
direct to the Cuban capital, Havana, ninety miles 
distant. 

Key West is eight hundred and fifty miles nearer the 
equator than Los Angeles, and one hundred miles 
nearer the equator than the southernmost part of 
Texas. It has twenty-five thousand inhabitants, 
mostly Cubans and negroes. Spanish is heard on the 




i-,:\ .'i/pfj 





A remarkable zvild fig tree at Key JFest 



Key West and its Sea-Going Railway 97 

streets more than English, and Spanish names are seen 
above many of the stores. The city is on a small island 
of the same name, commanding the entrance to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and has been called "America's 
Gibralter." The words Key West are a crude English 
pronunciation of the Spanish name for the island — 
Cayo Hueso. This name means Bone Island. Accord- 
ing to tradition, the native tribes inhabiting the keys 
were gradually driven from one island to another by a 
more powerful mainland tribe until they were nearly 
exterminated in a final battle on Key West. The few 
survivors escaped to Cuba. The abundance of human 
bones found on the island when it was first discovered 
suggested its name and gave color to the story. 

In 1846 the island was swept by a terrible hurricane, 
accompanied by an extraordinarily high tide. The sea 
rose ten feet above its usual level. 

During the war with Mexico, Key West was brought 
into prominence as a military and naval station, and 
permanent fortifications were begun. 

When Florida seceded from the Union the local 
Secessionists attempted to seize the place, but the 
commander of the fort, who had a few regulars under 
him, organized the workmen employed there, accepted 
the services of a company of citizen volunteers, and 
defied the Secessionists until reinforcements arrived. 

The islanders were insignificant in number until 
1869, when an attempted revolution in Cuba caused 
a migration that soon made Key West a busy manu- 



98 Highways and Byways of Florida 

facturlng place. Cigar-making there dates back to 
1 83 1, but for a long time the business made slow prog- 
ress. This influx of Cuban refugees stimulated it to 
an enormous extent, and it now employs many thou- 
sands of persons. 

In March, 1886, Key West was nearly destroyed by 
a fire that lasted two days. 

The island contains about one thousand acres. It 
is four and a half miles long and one mile wide. Its 
climate approaches very closely that of the tropics. 
The lowest recorded temperature is forty-one degrees. 
Everywhere along the streets and in the gardens are 
bananas; palms, and scores of other tropical growths. 
Notable among these is a banyan tree at the old gov- 
ernment barracks. This is the only tree of the species 
growing out of doors in the United States. The banyan 
is remarkable for the shoots it sends down from its 
branches. These root and become stems, and the tree 
spreads in this manner over a great surface and may 
endure for ages. A big banyan tree in India has no 
less than three hundred and fifty stems equal to large 
oak trunks, and more than three thousand smaller 
ones. 

Though without sewers, paving, or street-cleaning. 
Key West is serenely healthful, thanks to the winds 
and the cleansing tides. The streets are dusty, and the 
houses are a promiscuous jumble of mansions and 
hovels of all sizes, generally built of wood. They 
might be hopelessly commonplace were it not for their 




A street in Key JVest 



Key West and its Sea-Going Railway 99 

verandas and balconies. All roads quickly lead to the 
verge of the island, where you get the full benefit of the 
ever-blowing trade-winds and an outlook over the 
tropic sea. There is no public supply of water, and 
much of what is used is brought from the mainland by 
long trains of tank cars. Most houses on the other 
keys have cisterns, and rain water or distilled water is 
the chief dependence for drinking purposes. 

Key West has long been an important military and 
naval base, and has a harbor large enough to accom- 
modate the entire fleet of the United States navy. 
One of the attractions of the place is the fish wharves 
with their bright-colored tropical fish. A fish that is 
particularly common on the docks is what is known as 
the "grunt," a name derived from the fact that it 
grunts like a young pig when pulled out of the water. 
It is a small fish whose gaping mouth is orange within, 
and its tail the same color. Underneath it is white, 
its back is bronze, and the rest of it is light blue with 
numerous streaks and spots of other tints. "Grits and 
grunts" are the favorite foods of many of the Key 
Westers. At the fish market the fish are kept alive in 
tanks of water. When a buyer makes his selection, 
the dealer scoops out the fish with a net and prepares 
it for the frying-pan. 

Adjoining the fish dock is the turtle dock, where 
turtles weighing two or three hundred pounds awaiting 
shipment are not uncommon. They are shipped alive, 
reposing on their backs with their flappers tied. Some 



loo Highways and Byways of Florida 

of the largest, which weigh half a ton, are said to be 
several hundred years old. 

At another important wharf sponges are landed 
by the one hundred and fifty vessels of the sponge 
fleet, which are constantly coming and going. The 
vessels are mostly small schooners. Key West is a 
central market and shipping point for sponges, which 
are taken all along the reefs and far up the Gulf coast. 
The sponge production of American waters now greatly 
surpasses that of the Mediterranean, and most of the 
American sponge comes from either Florida or Cuba. 
Some sponges are secured by simply wading out in the 
shallows and pulling up the growths by hand. Others 
are obtained by going after them in boats and tearing 
them loose from their moorings on the rocky bottom 
by means of a two-tined hook. It is possible to hook 
them up from a depth of forty or fifty feet. But these 
ways of getting them have largely been abandoned for 
diving. The little sailing vessels generally carry a crew 
of eight. Two of the crew are divers who work alter- 
nately, and two are pumpers for the air apparatus. 
A diver can get sponges at greater depths than by the 
old methods and in much rougher water. He carries 
along a mesh bag for his catch, and this is hauled to the 
surface when filled. The greatest danger to which he 
is exposed is the man-eating sharks. 

The sponges as brought to the surface are black and 
slimy, and contain much animal matter called "gurry." 
When the vessels unload, the curing process begins at 




On Loggerhead Key, Dry Torlugas 



A 






Young mangroves growing in a shoal near one of the Florida keys 



Key West and its Sea-Going Railway loi 

once. For several days the sponges are kept in pans 
of shallow water through which the tides flow and wash 
away the gurry as it decomposes. Afterward they are 
further cleansed by being squeezed and beaten. Then 
they are dried and sorted and arranged in piles for the 
inspection of buyers. They are usually sold to the 
highest bidder by the pile. To keep up the supply the 
government has limited the divers' fishing season, and 
has propagated sponges by placing cuttings in new 
waters. A six-inch sponge will develop in from two 
to four years. 

The countless mangrove islands in the vicinity of 
Key West afford an inexhaustible field of exploration, 
and very good sport may be had with a fish-spear or 
net among the mangrove roots where all kinds of ma- 
rine creatures seek a refuge. With a little practice the 
spearman can walk on the projecting roots and watch 
for an opportunity to strike his game in the shoal 
water below. 

South of Key West is Sand Key, a small island 
which is nearer the tropics than any other point In the 
United States. A lighthouse Is located on It. Farther 
west are two other little groups of islands, the more 
remote of which Is the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles 
from Key West. Tortugas is Spanish for turtles, and 
the name refers to the abundance of these creatures 
and the dearth of fresh water there. This romantic 
group of ten small Islands was discovered and named 
by Ponce de Leon in 15 13. On one of the islands his 



I02 Highways and Byways of Florida 

sailors, in the course of a single night, caught one hun- 
dred and seventy turtles, and might have taken many 
more. The most conspicuous object seen by the ap- 
proaching voyager is Fort Jefferson, a massive brick 
structure begun in 1846 and used as a military prison 
during the Civil War. It has since been neglected and 
become dilapidated. The only inhabitants of the 
islands In recent years have been the army sergeant in 
charge, and the lighthouse keeper on Logger-head Key. 
There Is a fine sheltered anchorage near the crumbling 
fortress, but It Is visited only by spongers, fishermen, 
and wreckers, and by occasional government supply 
ships. 



VI 

TALLAHASSEE AND NORTHWESTERN FLORIDA 

THE next person after Ponce de Leon to under- 
take the exploration of Florida was Panfilo 
de Narvaez, who has been described by a 
contemporary as "a tall one-eyed man, with a voice 
deep and sonorous as though it came from a cavern." 
He sailed from Spain commissioned by the king to 
conquer and govern a province in the New World, 
and arrived with a company of four hundred armed 
men and eighty horses at one of the bays on the south- 
west Florida coast April 14, 1529. On the following 
day he landed. The Indians, who had a village in the 
vicinity, gave him a friendly reception, and he issued 
a proclamation to them announcing that the whole 
world belonged to the king and queen of Spain so that 
the Indians were their subjects. The proclamation 
continued in these words: "You will be compelled to 
accept Christianity. If you delay agreeing to what 
I have proposed, I will make war on you from all 
sides; I will obtain possession of your wives and chil- 
dren; I will reduce you to slavery." 

This did not suit the Indians. They refused to 
submit to such arrogance, and hostilities followed in 
which the Spaniards were as barbarous as the natives. 

103 



104 Highways and Byways of Florida 

The soldiers were sick of the sea, and it was decided 
that while one hundred men sailed northward in the 
vessels the remainder should take the horses and pro- 
ceed along the coast. For fifteen days the land force 
wandered through the wilderness without seeing a 
person or a human habitation. Their scanty supply 
of provisions was exhausted, and they were in desper- 
ate need of food. Then they encountered some In- 
dians, who told them of a village in the interior called 
Apalachee, and thither they went. The place proved 
to be a hamlet of forty thatched cabins where they 
could obtain no adequate supply of provisions. So 
they presently resumed their journey, constantly beset 
by Indians, who discharged showers of arrows from 
ambush. They declared that their assailants were 
exceedingly powerful and of gigantic stature, and that 
they discharged their arrows from bows that were 
eight feet in length. 

By midsummer the Spaniards arrived at the Bay of 
St. Marks, where they secured an abundance of fish 
and oysters; but the weather was very hot, and many 
of them began to be prostrated with tropical fevers. 
No gold had been discovered, and their lot had been 
one of unvarying hardship. Where their vessels were 
they know not, and after continuing a considerable 
distance farther along the coast they decided to build 
boats in which to get away. There were no ship car- 
penters among them, and they lacked tools and iron, 
tow and rigging. But a smith of the company con- 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 105 

structed' bellows from deer-skins, and made nails, saws, 
axes, and other implements from stirrups, spurs, cross- 
bows, and whatever things they possessed that had 
iron in them. Timber was cut and hewed into shape, 
sails were contrived from clothing, cordage from the 
fiber of the palmetto and from the tails and manes of 
horses. By skinning the horses' legs entire, recepta- 
cles were made for water. Oars were fashioned from 
cedars. Every third day a horse was killed and its 
flesh eaten by those who worked building the boats 
and those who were sick. Forays into the neighboring 
country secured a few bushels of maize, though not 
without quarrels and conflicts with the Indians. Par- 
ties who went gathering shell-fish in the coves and 
creeks within sight of the camp were twice attacked 
by the savages, who slew ten of the men. 

In a few weeks five boats were completed, each 
thirty-three feet long, and on the 226. of September a 
voyage was begun. About fifty men embarked In 
each boat. They were so crowded they could hardly 
move, and their weight and that of their supplies 
brought the gunwales to within six Inches of the water. 
Their boats were probably launched on Choctawhatchee 
Bay. Thence they went on by way of Santa Rosa 
Inlet with the purpose to keep along the coast to Mex- 
ico. They often had to wade and push their boats in 
the shallow water, and they suffered much from the 
Indians and from cold, disease, famine, thirst, and the 
fury of the waves. 



io6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Two of their boats were lost before they were out 
of Santa Rosa Inlet, and a third was wrecked near 
Pensacola Bay. So desperate was their lack of food 
that they lived for a time on the bodies of those Avho 
died. One night, when all the men who belonged on 
the governor's boat had gone on shore, except De 
Narvaez himself, the coxswain, and a boy, a storm 
drove the boat to sea at midnight, and nothing more 
was ever heard of the three who were on it. In the 
end only five members of the expedition got back to 
civilization, and one of these was held a half dozen 
years as a slave by the Indians. Nor would he have 
been spared had it not been that he had a slight knowl- 
edge of the healing art which resulted in his being In- 
stalled as a great medicine man. 

The oldest place in the northwest section of the state 
is Pensacola. Indeed, among all of Florida towns 
it ranks second only to St. Augustine in hoary antiq- 
uity. Probably the first European crew to sail into 
its magnificent sunlit bay was that of a Spanish pilot 
who came thither in 1 516, traded ofi" his cargo of trinkets 
to the natives for silver and gold, and returned peace- 
fully to Cuba. Other Spanish vessels visited the coast 
from time to time, and in 1696 the beginnings of a 
permanent settlement were made and a fort built on 
the mainland at the entrance to the bay, but the 
French destroyed everything in 1719. Three years 
later the Spaniards rebuilt the town on Santa Rosa 
Island near where Fort Pickens now stands. They 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 107 

had there a stockaded fort, a government building, a 
church, and thirty or more lessor structures, all of 
which were swept away in 1754 by a hurricane in con- 
junction with a high tide, and many of the inhabitants 
lost their lives. The survivors settled on the northern 
shore of its bay, the site of the present city. 

When Florida was transferred to English sovereignty 
in 1763 most of the Spanish in Pensacola removed 
to Mexico. The place as found by the English con- 
sisted of a village of forty huts thatched with palmetto 
leaves, and the barracks for a small garrison, round- 
about all of which was a stockade of pine posts. The 
country was uncultivated. Indians were numerous, 
and within a few days the newcomers were visited by 
two hundred of them of five different nations. 

Settlers began to flow In, and they brought slaves. 
A small fort was erected, and the surrounding forest 
began to give way to smiling gardens. Trade devel- 
oped with the Indians as far away as Tennessee. 
Pack horses went out In all directions carrying goods 
to distant tribes and bringing back skins, honey, and 
dried venison. One driver usually served for ten 
animals, and from five to ten drivers were likely to 
travel together. They were generally brave and jolly 
fellows whose visits were welcomed. 

When Florida again came under Spanish domina- 
tion the prestige and prosperity of Pensacola waned. 
The Spaniards were somewhat hostile to the Americans 
in the War of 18 12, and the British were permitted 



lo8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

to make Pensacola harbor a rendezvous for a fleet, 
and the town a base of supplies for hostile Indians. 
So in November, 1812, "Old Hickory" marched there 
and captured the place by storm. The Spanish com- 
mander had gotten away by water, and with some 
British troops and friendly Indians proceeded a short 
way up the Apalachicola River and constructed a fort 
on a bordering bluff that jutted out into the river from 
the east side. This fort was intended to be used as a 
base of operations from which the neighboring border 
might be depredated. After the war the British troops 
left the fort, but a negro named Garcia retained pos- 
session of It, with other negroes under his leadership 
for a garrison, and it became a strong center of defense 
to the large colony of runaway slaves who had settled 
along the river. The walls were fifteen feet high and 
eighteen broad. There was a swamp behind it and 
creeks above and below. It had nine cannon, three 
thousand small arms, and an amply-stored magazine. 
In 1816 American troops attacked it, aided by a large 
body of Creek Indians who were led by Mad-Tiger 
and other chiefs. The fort was defended by about 
one hundred effective men, including twenty-five 
Choctaws, and besides It sheltered over two hundred 
women and children. A battle was fought, and the 
task of capturing the fort would have proved a trouble- 
some piece of work had not a lucky hot shot from a 
United States gunboat exploded the stronghold's 
magazine. This caused great slaughter and demorallza- 




Washing in the yard 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 109 

tion among the defenders and broke their resistance. 
The attackers suffered no loss whatever. Garcia and a 
Choctaw chief were executed after the surrender, and 
the runaway negroes were sent back to slavery. Prop- 
erty with a value of two hundred thousand dollars 
is said to have been recovered In the fort. 

Pensacola continued to be a rallying place for fill- 
busters, runaway slaves, and British agents, and 
General Andrew Jackson captured the town for a 
second time in 18 18. 

After Florida was acquired by the United States 
the fine harbor at Pensacola was made an important 
naval station, and the place became one of the leading 
seaports on our Gulf coast. On the morning of Jan- 
uary 12, 1 86 1, the surrender of the navy yard was 
demanded by Colonel Chase with a force of twelve 
hundred Confederates. The Union commander ca- 
pitulated, for effective resistance was impossible. The 
few men stationed at the yard were mustered near the 
flagstaff when the Confederates marched in. William 
Conway, a seaman grown old in the government serv- 
ice, was ordered by a Union lieutenant to haul down 
the flag In token of surrender. The habit of obedience 
is strong in a man-of-war's man, but Conway used 
tolerably rough language toward the officer, and re- 
fused to obey the command. His loyalty under ex- 
ceptionally trying circumstances was later recognized 
and rewarded by congress. Of course the surrender 
was simply slightly delayed. Another man was found 



no Highways and Byways of Florida 

to haul down the flag, and the Confederate colors 
rose in Its place. 

Thirty-one navy yard seamen got away to Fort 
Pickens where they increased the force to eighty-two 
men. The fort was designed for a garrison of over a 
thousand. That evening a demand for its surrender 
came and was refused. The men worked all day 
strengthening the defenses, and at night lay by the 
guns on the parapet, often called to quarters by false 
alarms, and well-nigh exhausted. At the same time the 
Confederates were erecting batteries commanding the 
fort and its approaches. Thus things continued until 
the night of April 12, when a strong Union force was 
landed on Santa Rosa Island under cover of darkness, 
and Fort Pickens was saved. 

About a year afterward, late one night, the Con- 
federates abandoned their posts in the neighborhood 
of Pensacola, and attempted to destroy the buildings 
in the navy yard and other property. As soon as 
their design was evident the commanding officer at 
Fort Pickens opened fire to hasten their withdrawal. 
This resulted in saving some structures which the 
Confederates had prepared to burn, and the United 
States troops took prompt possession of Pensacola 
and extinguished the flames where possible. 

Pensacola harbor is said to be the finest and safest 
one on the Gulf, protected as It Is by Santa Rosa 
Island from the storms of the open water beyond. 
It is thirty-seven miles long, with an average width 




oq 




A drink jrom tlw Suivcuuiee 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida ill 

of three miles. Many warships are usually there at 
all seasons. The harbor offers delightful opportunities 
for boating. Pensacola itself is a stirring modern town 
with expanding industries and commerce. Off the 
wharves is likely to be a busy scene where a large 
fleet of vessels is loading lumber from rafts alongside. 
The town is a great fish market, and from here scores 
of boats go several hundred miles to fish near the 
coast of Yucatan. Pensacola is in the coldest part of 
Florida, yet snow seldom falls and frosts are light. 
Its temperature is much the same as that of southern 
Italy. 

When De Soto made his long wandering journey 
In the American wilderness he spent a winter in an 
Indian village that was where Tallahassee now Is; 
and a complete suit of Spanish armor has been found 
in recent years in a field in the vicinity. The ground 
on which the city is built bore signs of having been 
long occupied by the Indians when it was selected in 
1823 as a seat of government for the new territory of 
Florida. Tallahassee Is a name that the Seminoles 
applied to any land occupied by the tribe as a permanent 
home, and the word is equivalent to "ancestral acres." 

Two commissioners were appointed to visit the 
region and determine on a desirable spot for the cap- 
ital. One was from St. Augustine In what was then 
known as East Florida, and the other from Pensacola 
In West Florida. Both had difhcult journeys through 
the wilderness before they met late in October. One 



112 Highways and Byways of Florida 

night that they spent with the Indians shortly after- 
ward was enlivened by a snake dance, an annual 
festivity in which the savages indulged every October. 
Its object was to exorcise the serpents whom they 
would naturally encounter on the great hunting ex- 
pedition that they went on immediately afterward. 
In one of the dances called the "mad dance" most of 
their gestures were remarkably martial and graceful 
and Illustrated the fiery vigor of the Indians' char- 
acter. A chief who was met two days later evinced his 
opposition to the commissioners proceeding farther by 
angrily catching up a handful of dirt and asking if 
that was not his land. 

The Indians on Tallahassee Hill had been driven 
away early in 1818, and settlers from North Carolina, 
Virginia, and Georgia Immediately took possession 
of it. The spot was chosen by the government com- 
missioners because of the general beauty of the situ- 
ation, and the noble growths of live oaks and magno- 
lias. A log cabin erected on the southeast corner of 
the present state house grounds served for a capltol 
building, and there the first meeting of the Legislative 
Council was held. 

During the peaceful prosperous years that followed 
Florida's admission to the Union in 1845, Tallahassee 
was the chief city of the state, and wealthy planters 
from near and far thronged there for social pleasure. 
They came In especially large numbers to enjoy "the 
season," which was when the legislature met. It was 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 113 

not simply the men who came, but entire families, 
and there were great balls as well as great debates. 

The state house Is an Imposing structure of brick and 
stucco at the brow of a hill in a grove of fine trees. 
This hill is one of seven that the city occupies, and 
the place is sometimes called the "Hill City." An- 
other name it has acquired is the "City of Flowers," 
Everywhere are gardens, and the citizens are rivals 
in their ambition to surpass each other in the floral 
adorning of their home surroundings. In early spring 
Tallahassee becomes a veritable bower of roses, and 
the dignified old mansions that line Its streets, often 
in a tangle of shrubbery and vines, and shaded by 
stately oaks, magnolias, and bays, are at that time 
particularly lovely. So abundant are the trees that 
the place has much the aspect of an extensive park. 
Tallahassee Is a typical southern town — not a camp 
in the woods, nor an old city metamorphosed into a 
fashionable winter resort. Fortunately, too, it has 
not been commercialized by "Northern enterprise." 
It has about five thousand inhabitants and is compactly 
built so that the roads from Its seven hills soon take 
one out Into the open country. 

Every market day numerous negroes from the farms 
troop Into the city for rest and shopping. Some 
come in a dilapidated conveyance drawn by a mule or 
an ox. Negro mammies whose heads are covered 
with a bandanna handkerchief stand In groups on the 
Street corners, and the men congregate here and there 



114 Highways and Byways of Florida 

to gossip while they observe the activities of the 
town. 

In the Tallahassee cemetery Is a lofty monument 
inscribed "Prince Murat, King of Naples," and near 
by is another monument that marks the last resting 
place of the wife of this King of Naples. Prince Murat 
was the oldest son of the famous marshal of France 
who was made ruler of Naples by Napoleon in 1805, 
but was deposed after a reign of ten years. The son 
came to America soon afterward, in early manhood, 
and visited nearly all the settled portions of the United 
States, although carriage roads and bridle-paths were 
then almost the only artificial lines of travel. He 
became so enamored of the climate and country at 
Tallahassee that he bought there a large estate and 
erected an unpretentious house, which is still known 
as the Murat Homestead. He took an active Interest 
in local affairs, and served successively as postmaster, 
alderman, and mayor. In 1826 he married a beauti- 
ful and refined Virginia girl who was a grandnlece of 
Washington. 

Murat, though intellectually brilliant, had dubious 
personal habits, and was eccentric to the verge of 
lunacy. Several books that he wrote on political 
affairs in the United States were published in Paris, 
and one went through fifty editions. But he wasted 
his property, and when he died in 1847, after years 
of disease, through which he was faithfully tended by 
his wife, she was left almost penniless. The restora- 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 115 

tion of the Napoleon dynasty in France, however, 
brought her recognition and a handsome competence 
from the new emperor with whom she was a great 
favorite. 

Another European with a local estate was the Mar- 
quis de Lafayette who was granted a large tract of land 
east of Tallahassee in recognition of his services to the 
United States during the War for Independence. 

The city is in the heart of a fertile agricultural 
section which is becoming a great livestock country. 
In slavery times the estates of the large planters 
covered thousands of acres, and their wealth enabled 
them to live in true baronial style. Most of the great 
plantations have now been subdivided and sold or 
let to small tenants. But the country is still a land 
of beauty, rising everywhere into rounded hills or 
dimpling into gentle valleys, jeweled with lakes, 
and having many a pretty stream winding through 
its hollows. There are frequent clusters of comfortable 
farm buildings, and fields of cotton, sugar-cane, 
tobacco, and grain, and orchards of pears and peaches. 
The soil has in it a good deal of clay, and the aspect 
of nature is distinctly different from that of the sandy 
country farther east and south. Here are hills that 
convey a sense of exhilaration. Here too are mansions 
and cabins, and negro men and women working in 
the fields. It is the old South of which one has read 
and dreamed. 

The superlative glory of the Tallahassee country 



ii6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

is its wealth of live oaks. They are mighty in stature, 
and their age covers many spans of human life. Their 
great globes of richest green are seen on all the hills, 
virile, strong, and lordly. Clay and sand are both 
present in the soil, and they pack into capital road- 
ways which require little care to keep them hard and 
smooth. The roads are very apt to ramble along 
between natural hedges of trees, vines, and shrubs 
carelessly intermingled. These are not dense enough 
to conceal the prospect, nor to shut out the breeze 
which "comes straight from the Gulf," but sufficient 
to afford welcome protection from the sun. There 
are long stretches of highway where the trees almost 
intertwine overhead, their branches adorned by beau- 
tiful mosses, ferns, and clambering vines. Portions 
of the road too are lined by Cherokee roses, and there 
is plenty of climbing scarlet honeysuckle, and thorn 
bushes flourish in bewildering variety. The height of 
the flower season is in early April. 

In this region the purple martins are seen flying 
back and forth over the fields uttering many cheerful 
noises, and the cabin yards often have in one corner 
calabashes hung from a tall pole for the martins' ac- 
commodation. The natives encourage the martins by 
supplying these dangling long-necked squashes because 
of the protection the martins afford to the chickens by 
driving away hawks. 

The mocking-birds are said to be more numerous in 
the vicinity of Tallahassee than in any other part of 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 117 

the South. In their singing season you rarely fail to 
have one or more carolling within hearing. 

This whole region is underd rained by subterranean 
rivers. "Sinks," caused by these streams wearing 
away the overlying rock so that it drops down, abound. 
Some are only a few feet across, and some are large 
enough to take in a good-sized house. The water in 
them may be shallow or deep, and it may be still or 
swift, and it sometimes plays curious pranks. Six 
miles northwest of Tallahassee is Lake Jackson with 
an average width and length of five miles. Shortly 
after the Charleston earthquake in August, 1886, it 
distinguished itself by disappearing entirely through 
some underground passage. Large numbers of fish 
perished, and for a time pestilence was dreaded by the 
neighboring residents. But after a few days the lake 
began to fill up and since that time has maintained 
the usual level. 

Fifteen miles southerly from Tallahassee is one of 
the most wonderful springs in the world, the Wakulla, 
which sends off a full-grown river of the same name 
from its single outburst. Wakulla is an Indian word 
which means "mystery." Really the spring is an 
underground stream emerging from the limestone to 
the surface. It occupies a nearly circular basin of the 
rock four hundred feet across and eighty feet deep. 
In it grow beautiful grasses and moss, and it is full 
of fish. The water Is thrlllingly transparent. A ledge 
of ghostly white rock juts up for about half the dis- 



ii8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

tance to the surface, and from beneath this the fish 
come swimming as if out of the entrance to a great 
cave. Precipitous heavily wooded banks overhang 
the spring and add greatly to its charm. The water 
flows forth at the rate of one hundred and twenty 
thousand gallons a minute, and the river is two hun- 
dred and fifty feet wide at the outset. Farther on the 
stream attains a width of a mile, and enters the Gulf 
of Mexico thirteen miles from its source. 

West from the capital near Marianna is Long Moss 
Spring, which pours out a good-sized creek with such 
violence that fragments of stone thrown into it will 
not sink. That vicinity is full of remarkable springs, 
caves, sinks, and natural bridges. 

Southeast of Tallahassee extends a vast belt of flat 
woods merging into an almost impenetrable swamp 
and tangle of undergrowth. This is a famous hunting- 
ground, and somewhere in the watery jungle is the 
"Wakulla Volcano." The curious inquirer will meet 
people who have seen the smoke of the volcano nearly 
every day in their lives, and he will meet others who 
declare there is no such smoke. But it seems to be 
pretty will established that ever since the country was 
settled a column of smoke or vapor has been visible 
in favorable weather rising from a spot so far within 
the swamp that no one has ever penetrated to it. 
Several expeditions organized to solve the mystery 
were forced to turn back by the difficulties of the jungle. 
The Indians used to affirm that the smoke has always 



Tallahassee and Northwestern Florida 1 19 

risen there from the remotest times, but of its cause 
they knew no more than their white successors. An 
intelligent traveler who observed the smoke from the 
cupola of the courthouse at Tallahassee a few years 
ago says that it rolled up in strong volume, usually 
dense and dark like the smoke from a furnace chimney. 
He was assured by a resident that it was often lighted 
with a faint glow at night. The best informed persons 
whom he consulted believed it to be vapor from a 
boiling spring, possibly mingled with gas that occa- 
sionally ignites. One of the tributaries of the Ocilla 
River is distinctly higher In temperature than any of 
the neighboring streams, and the theory is advanced 
that this has its source In the supposed boiling spring. 
A fort was built by the Spaniards in 1718 at Port 
Leon, a little way from Apalachee Bay up the St. Marks 
River. Ruined limestone masonry work still indicates 
the site two miles south of the present town of St. 
Marks. The first railroad in Florida was built in 1836 
to connect St. Marks with Tallahassee twenty miles 
away. During the Civil War the river served to some 
extent as a refuge for blockade runners, but United 
States gunboats cruised up and down the coast at 
such short Intervals that blockade running in that 
section was dangerous and unprofitable. In 1863 salt 
works of considerable extent were established along 
the river, and thence the Confederate States obtained 
much of their scanty supply of salt. These works were 
producing twenty-four hundred bushels daily at the 



120 Highways and Byways of Florida 

end of six months when a Federal boat expedition 
totally destroyed them. 

Excellent shooting may be found in the passes and 
creeks about the mouth of the river, and excellent 
fishing in the deep channels of the river itself. The 
source of the St. Marks is supposed to be Lake Micco- 
sukee. Its whole course may be traced by a series of 
sinks and occasional exposed reaches. It makes a 
last rise from its underground ways eighteen miles 
above St. Marks. 

Probably the best known of all the northwestern 
Florida streams is the Suwannee — not because of com- 
merical or historic importance, but because it has 
been immortalized in that best-loved of all plantation 
songs, "The Old Folks at Home." We are told that on 
the east bank of the river, near Ellaville, stands the 
tree under whose moss-hung branches the song was 
written. As a matter of fact the author and com- 
poser of the song, Stephen C. Foster, never saw the 
Suwannee, but used the name because its rhythm 
suited his purpose. The river has Its origin in the great 
Oklfinokee swamp of Georgia, whence It winds Its 
devious way southward Into Florida, and so on into 
the Gulf. 



VII 

CENTRAL FLORIDA WITH ITS LAKES AND SPRINGS 

IAKES abound In all parts of the state and are 
. one of its distinctive charms. There are at 
^ least thirty thousand of them, varying in size 
from Okechobee to tiny lakelets with less than a hun- 
dred square feet of surface. They are particularly 
numerous in the central part, which has for this reason 
been aptly called the "Lake District." In Lake 
County alone there are fourteen hundred lakes large 
enough to have names. The county is a region of little 
hills and hollows, and in the hollows is water — some- 
times lily ponds, sometimes lakes several miles in length. 
The Florida lakes are fairly alive with fish, and 
furnish excellent sport for the angler. All are filled 
with clear fresh water, even when there is no visible 
inlet or outlet. But many of the streams and a large 
proportion of the springs are more or less impregnated 
with lime. Almost anywhere in the southern portion 
of the state good fresh water can be obtained by drill- 
ing into the soft calcarious rock to a depth of fifteen 
or twenty feet, sinking a pipe, and fitting a pump at 
the top. 

On a map of Florida made about 1560 a large lake 



122 Highways and Byways of Florida 

was placed In the middle of the peninsula with a 
note beside It stating, "So great Is this lake that one 
shore cannot be seen from the other." This fits very 
well Lake Okechobee, a name which means "Big 
Water." It Is the largest fresh-water lake within the 
limits of the United States, except Lake Michigan. 
In shape It Is nearly round, and the distance across It 
Is about thirty-five miles. Its chief tributary Is the 
KIssImmee River which drains millions of acres to the 
north. A canal and the Caloosahatchee River connect 
it with the Gulf of Mexico, and work has begun on 
four canals to the east coast. During the Seminole 
War It was frequently visited by scouting parties, and 
in 1 841 a force of seamen and marines skirted Its south- 
ern shore and made the first trustworthy report of Its 
topography. Since 1865 It has been visited frequently 
by hunters and camping parties. 

About half way between the lake and Tampa Is 
Charlie Apopka Creek, a tributary of Peace Creek, 
Its extraordinary name attracts attention. Really, 
this name Is a corruption of the Seminole name for it, 
which is Tsalopophohatchee, equivalent in English to 
"Catfish-eating Creek." 

The waters of Florida present many unusual phases 
in characteristics as well as names. In Sumter County 
is the old Belton gristmill which has ground corn in the 
neighborhood ever since 1857. It Is operated by a 
spring ninety-eight feet deep. The water Is dammed, 
and the fall generates forty-five horsepower. 



Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 123 

Within easy driving distance of Winter Park, Orange 
County, is Clay Spring across which strong swimmers 
strive in vain to pass, so powerful is the upward rush 
of water from a dark rock chasm. 

Near Gainesville there used to be what was known 
as Paynes Prairie. A stream which was the outlet of 
Newmans Lake flowed half-way across the prairie, and 
then went down into an unfathomed abyss known to 
the Indians as Alachua, that is, "The Bottomless Pit." 
The vicinity of the abyss became a favorite picnic 
resort, and parties of visitors amused themselves by 
throwing in whatever they could lay their hands on, 
even felling large trees to see them disappear. But in 
1875 Alachua refused to swallow any more, and Paynes 
Prairie with its thousands of acres of rich grazing land 
became a lake. 

Farther south, near the town of Micanopy, a stream 
used to flow Into a chasm similar to Alachua, but 
smaller. The owner became anxious lest the opening 
should get choked and his land be overflowed. So he 
built a curbing of logs around It. Unfortunately the 
curbing gave way, the passage was clogged, and Tusca- 
willa Lake is the result. 

Five miles north of Gainesville is the Devils Mill 
Hopper, a bowl-shaped depression about three acres 
in extent and one hundred and fifty feet deep. The 
sides of the bowl are covered with luxuriant vegetation, 
and fifteen springs break from the rock and cascade 
down into a pool at the bottom of the hopper. 



124 Highways and Byways of Florida 

No metals have ever been discovered in Florida. 
Its most valuable mineral product is phosphate. Long 
before the usefulness of the Florida phosphate rock as 
a plant food for enriching the soil was recognized it was 
used for the underpinning of houses and in building 
chimneys. In 1881 a government officer who exam- 
ined some of the rock near Peace Creek realized what 
it was, and tried to induce capitalists in Jacksonville, 
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to buy the entire 
valley, which they could have done for little more 
money than has since been invested in a single mine. 
But he could not persuade any one that the rock had 
value. What he failed to do was accomplished by a 
village doctor in 1889. Some phosphate was brought 
to this doctor at Ocala by a man living near the now 
famous Dunnellon mines. It had been found while 
boring a well. The doctor analyzed it and reported 
that the substance was seventy-six per cent phosphate 
of lime, and that if the deposit was abundant it was 
better than a gold mine. Within a few weeks the ten 
acres of poor land on which the well was located sold for 
ten thousand dollars. Other land was bought right and 
left, the whole country was aroused, and men, women, 
and children became prospectors for the coveted 
phosphate. 

Florida is the greatest producer of phosphate of any 
region In the world. Lakeland is the state's chief 
center of this important fertilizer industry. The phos- 
phate rock is found only a few feet beneath the surface 



Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 125 

in layers from eight to twelve feet thick. The debris 
from one excavation is poured into an older one so that 
no lofty heaps of refuse accumulate. Many millions 
of dollars are invested in the industry in this vicinity, 
which produces about one-third of the world's total 
output. 

From the Central Lake Region come more oranges 
and grapefruit than from any other section of the state, 
and these two citrus fruits are the most important prod- 
ucts of the peninsula. It Is the ambition of every new 
settler in the Central Lake Region to have a grapefruit 
and orange grove. The land between the rows of trees 
is generally devoted to vegetable growing and to le- 
g.umInous crops for the production of hay and the im- 
provement of the soil in adding humus and nitrogen. 
The young citrus trees begin to bloom In less than two 
years, but early fruiting is discouraged, and the blos- 
soms are nipped off before fruit begins to form so that 
all the vitality goes into roots, trunks, and branches.' 
The tree follows the variety of the seed, and when prop- 
erly cared for a first crop may be expected from the 
seed In six years. 

An orange tree is worth having merely as a flower- 
ing tree, if for nothing else. It is a bouquet of sweets. 
The leaping forth of the blossoms In March to gem 
the green leaves is almost miraculously beautiful, the 
air is full of the fragrance, and the ground is covered 
with the white shell-like petals. 

The early oranges are picked in November, and from 



126 Highways and Byways of Florida 

that time onward there are oranges ripening until April. 
Those intended for northern shipment are picked be- 
fore they are throughly ripe, and the distant purchaser 
never gets the delicious flavor of the perfect orange. In 
a good season the ground under the trees is covered 
with fallen fruit for months, and these oranges are the 
richest and sweetest if they have not been allowed to 
lie too long. The yield Is marvelous, and as many as 
ten thousand oranges have been picked from a single 
tree. 

The largest orange grove in the state Is the Monarch 
Grove in Panasofpher Hammock, Sumter County. 
It contains seven hundred and thirty-seven acres. 
Some of the big oaks, hickories, magnolias, and 
palmettos of the hammock were not disturbed in de- 
veloping the orange grove. One of the oaks measures 
forty-seven feet In circumference. Fifty men are re- 
quired to care for the grove, and In the picking season 
three times that number. As many as one hundred 
and fourteen carloads of fruit have been sent to 
market from the grove in a single season. California 
and Florida are the two great orange producing states. 
The latter's crop has been about half that of California 
in recent years. 

The sweet orange is a native of India. Thence it was 
originally brought by the Arabs to Europe, and came 
to Florida by way of Spain and the West Indies. The 
trees are naturally very long lived, and in Spain are 
some with an authenticated record of seven hundred 



Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 127 

years. Nearly all the tropical lands of the globe have 
contributed to the numerous varieties now grown in 
Florida. Among the regions from which they have 
been Introduced are northern Africa, the Azores, south- 
ern Europe, China, Japan, Australia, Tahiti, and Brazil. 

Occasionally, when the temperature threatens to go 
alarmingly low, orange growers will keep fires burning 
in their orchards through the night in an attempt to 
save the crop on the trees and next year's blossoms. 
Cold slightly below freezing does not harm the oranges, 
but a really severe frost destroys fruit and bloom, and 
kills the trees themselves even with the ground. How- 
ever, new shoots start up from the roots, with the pluck 
that is characteristic of this genus of trees, and if given 
a reasonable degree of care are bearing again in a few 
years. Some of the rejuvenated trees, after the big 
freeze of 1835, had four, five, or six trunks. The orange- 
orchard owners were so discouraged that many of them 
moved off. Fences were broken down, and the land 
was left an open common where wild cattle browsed 
and rubbed themselves on the trees. Even this treat- 
ment did not entirely overwhelm them, and a few be- 
came large and productive. 

There are wild oranges as well as the cultivated ones. 
They grow large and handsome and juicy, and, in spite 
of their bitter flavor, some people find them thirst-sat- 
isfying and refreshing. The fruit is used for preserves 
and in the preparation of certain beverages. A clump 
of these wild trees growing in the very heart of a dense 



128 Highways and Byways of Florida 

dark forest, where their handsome fruit glows like lamps 
amid the deep green foliage, is very charming. They 
are often cultivated in the town streets and about homes 
for ornament and shade. Northern visitors are invited 
to help themselves freely from any of these trees in the 
streets and squares, and in this way frequently learn 
the difference between sweet and bitter oranges by prac- 
tical experience. 

The Spaniards brought the grapefruit to Florida, 
where it has been ever since neglected until compara- 
tively recent years, yet taking care of itself with cheer- 
ful virility. People often planted a few about their 
houses because it grew rapidly and afforded a grateful 
shade, and because it was picturesquely decorative with 
its huge globes of yellow fruit. Few persons considered 
the fruit edible, but now the demand for it is enormous, 
and a thrifty grapefruit grove is a valuable property. 
In congenial surroundings a grapefruit tree will produce 
fruit almost beyond belief. A single tree ten years old 
is capable of bearing a ton of fruit, though only fifteen 
feet high and its trunk no more than six inches in 
diameter at the butt. You may find a limb the size of 
your wrist on which can be counted a hundred of the 
grapefruits. It seems a marvel that the tree can sustain 
the weight of them. Their name is derived, not from 
any resemblance to the grape in taste or size, but be- 
cause they grow in similar bunches. Plucking does not 
usually begin until March, and by that time the beauti- 
ful white blossoms are beginning to appear. These, 




Picking oranges 



Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 129 

combined with the yellow fruit and the thick dark 
foliage, make a grove singularly beautiful. The fruit 
is particularly delectable when plucked ripe direct from 
the tree, one end cut off, and the juice drank as it is 
set free by crushing the fruit with the hands. 

"The development of Florida is due to tired Yankees 
going there to spend the winter, liking the country, and 
making investments." Certainly, the average man 
who comes from the marrow-chilling, fuel-devouring 
rigor of the northern winter, and visits an orange 
grove Is bewitched by the golden wealth of fruit on the 
trees. If it happens to be the season when the nectar- 
filled blooms are giving forth their perfume, he will 
breathe deeply of the seductive fragrance of this 
new realm, and become so completely captivated that 
the desire to possess an orange grove for his very own 
is uncontrollable. There is something magically com- 
pelling about a compact symmetrical orange orchard, 
with Its dark ever-enduring foliage hanging full of ripe 
fruit and starred with waxy white blossoms. 

All fruits grow bountiful crops in Florida, but a man 
has to give thought and sweat for every dollar he makes 
from them. He cannot set out an orchard and then go 
fishing until it begins to bear. Nature will not take 
care of It. Success In fruit requires an investment of 
money, and It requires skill, good judgment, labor, 
watchfulness, and the patience to wait. Better not fool 
with fruit unless you are willing to go at it right. 
A hit or miss orchard will not be a success. Moreover, 



130 Highways and Byways of Florida 

quality and honesty are essential. A market cannot 
be built up by shipping an inferior product, nor by any 
best-fruit-on-top device. The orange-grower may at- 
tain an independent life of ease and culture and a home 
that combines many attractions, but to do so he must 
make a scientific study of the industry, and have 
enough money to enable him to tide over the half- 
dozen years before his newly-started grove will come 
into bearing. 

Florida soil and sunshine work all the year round, 
and truck farming is a continuous performance. If 
one crop fails the farmer does not have to wait until 
the next year. He can at once start a new crop. 

Lettuce and celery are planted In the fall and are 
ready for the early winter market. After they are 
harvested the same land is planted to corn, sweet 
potatoes, or some such field crops, and these are 
stored or sent to market the latter part of the summer. 
The same soil will yield a crop of native grass which 
is cut for hay in the fall, and afterward the land is 
made ready for another planting of vegetables. In 
many sections irrigation is easily provided by simply 
boring down from ten to twenty feet, where you 
strike water that will gush up in a flowing well. 

You may hear of a profit of two thousand dollars 
an acre from some of the crops marketed in the winter; 
and the story is told of one man who built an enormous 
hotel from a single crop of tomatoes. But if there 
happens to be one severely cold night, that season's 




^^1 

Ready to start for market 



Central Florida with its Lakes and Springs 131 

crop may be ruined. Another unlucky possibility 
is a low price that does not pay expenses. 

Some of the produce raised in Florida is drawn 
long distances to the railroads. A team of eight runt 
oxen of range cattle breed will come across the barrens 
a distance of thirty miles drawing a creaking wagon 
laden with boxes of oranges and grapefruit. They 
return with a load of groceries and other supplies. 
Six days are required for the round trip. You can 
hear the approaching team long before you see it. 
The driver carries a six foot whipstock with a lash 
twice its length that will reach the foremost yoke of 
oxen while he walks beside the cart. When he snaps 
the whip it gives off a noise like the discharge of a 
pistol. From the crack of his whip the Southern 
woodsman gets the name of "cracker," a name which 
is applied indiscriminately to all natives whether drivers 
of oxen or not. 

Among the crackers are found families whose manner 
of living is astonishingly primitive. They dispense 
with many things that most of us consider necessities, 
while the luxuries which a household enjoys might be 
summed up in one word — tobacco. The shingles of 
the roof are apt to be curled and warped under cushions 
of green moss, and they are almost hidden during 
the rainy season by a soft growth of tree-ferns. The 
walls are of logs, and the spaces between the logs are 
chinked with mud. Often there is no window. In- 
stead, the door stands open and lets a patch of sun- 



132 Highways and Byways of Florida 

shine fall on the earthen floor. If the day is rainy and 
the door is shut, sleeping is the natural resource of the 
inmates of the dwelling. The floor is higher in the 
center so that the rain dripping through the broken 
roof may not stand in pools about the inmates' feet. 
For such weather the logs burning in the big fireplace 
give some relief. The fire, at least, is cheerful with 
its leaping flames, its snappings, and its hissings of 
sap. The wide hearth is at one end of the single room, 
which is the whole house, except for the loft above. 

The chimney is on the outside. It is built of mud, 
and is girdled by barrel hoops or ropes, which were 
put around it as a support while the mud was wet. 
As time goes on, the heat within drying the mud usu- 
ally makes the chimney lean away from the wall. In 
fair weather the crackers cook out of doors for the 
most part. Near the cabin a fire is built between 
three great stones which serve as supports for kettles. 

The people are shy and somewhat suspicious of 
strangers. When questioned they glance downward 
and sideways with anxious embarrassment. 

Their schools and school buildings are no less prim- 
itive than their dwellings. One Florida sojourner 
has told of "Old Man Monson," who, as a person of 
property and character, was on the school board, 
although he had no tincture of learning. He was once 
greatly incensed over a mutiny of young crackers 
at the district school, and rode to the scene of it, shot- 
gun in hand, to quell the disturbance. 




A rustic zvcll 



Central Florida with Its Lakes and Springs 133 

"I found dey'd turned de teacher out o' do's!" he 
reported afterward. "Dere dey was — a shootin' an' 
a-hollerin' des like a passil o' heathen. Hit was de 
low-downest t'ing I ever see. 

"I went to de do' an' tol' 'em dey better open it, 
ef dey did'nt want to have it blowed open wi' buck- 
shot. Dey opened it den mighty quick; an' when 
I went in, dere dey was a-settin' as cool as you please, 
like dey hadn't done no devilment 'tall. 

"I looked round at 'em fer a w'ile, an' den I done 
tol' 'em what I thought. I said dey ought to be 
plumb 'shamed o' deirselves. I said I wasn't a-gwine 
to stand no sich goin's on. I tol' 'em me an' all de 
rest o' de settlement done paid money to have 'em 
a teacher — an' here dey was a-runnin' her off like a 
nigger. 

"I said dey wasn't no 'count, an' dey wouldn' be 
no 'count ef dey was a-gwine to do like dat. I tol' 'em 
dey got to do diff'rent. I said hit was de hardest kind 
o' work to git a teacher to come here in de woods — an' 
dis totin' revolvers to school an' shootin' holes in de 
blackbo'd, an' bustin' de winders, an' spittin' ter- 
backer on de flo' was 'nuff to disgust any respectable 
woman. I said she done right to object to it, an' ef 
any of 'em tuk to devilin' her again dey'd have to be 
dispelled from school. Dat's what I tol' 'em." 

There is complaint on the Florida farms of the 
scarcity of help, just as there is in other parts of the 
country. One farmer who tried to hire a native re- 



134 Highways and Byways of Florida 

ceived this reply: "What for should I work? Hit 
don't cost me but thirty-five dollars a year to live, 
and I've got forty dollars." 

The only things an average backwoods native has 
to buy are pepper, salt, and tobacco. Except for 
these the country produces all he needs in the way of 
food, clothing, and housing. Nowhere is the lure to 
be shiftless stronger. 



VIIT 

THE WEST COAST 

WHEN the Spaniards conquered Florida they 
found larger and more flourishing native 
villages on the west coast than anywhere 
else. The healthfulness of the situation, its freedom 
from fogs, the shallow and placid waters of the Gulf 
of Mexico, the abundance of game, and the ease of 
obtaining fish and oysters lent it an attraction that 
it has by no means lost since. Weather conditions 
are certainly more equable than on the Atlantic coast, 
and raw easterly winds are unknown. At Cedar Keys, 
for instance, the climate is declared to be simply warm 
summer when the North has winter, and warmer 
summer when the North has summer. The town of 
Cedar Keys has a good harbor, and thrives on fishing, 
turtling, sponging, and preparing red cedar for use in 
manufacturing lead pencils. It is on a key that is 
surrounded by scores of others, many of which have 
the appearance of being a clump of palms arranged like 
a tasteful bouquet, and placed in the sea to keep fresh. 
One of the characteristic plants of the keys is the 
Spanish bayonet. It develops palm-like from a ter- 
minal bud, and when mature is eight or ten feet high 

I3S 



136 Highways and Byways of Florida 

with a trunk three or four inches in diameter. The 
stout leaves are very rigid and sharp-pointed. A man 
might be seriously stabbed by one of them. Woe to 
the luckless wanderer who attempts to force his way 
through an armed Florida jungle after dark. Vegetable 
cats of many species will rob him of his clothes and 
claw his flesh, dwarf palmettos will saw his bones, and 
the bayonets will glide to his joints and marrow. 

At the beginning of the Civil War, Cedar Keys was 
a convenient harbor for blockade-runners, but in 
January, 1862, the Federals made a descent on it when 
there were seven vessels in the harbor loaded with 
cotton and turpentine waiting favorable weather to 
run the blockade. These vessels and their cargoes 
were burned, as were also the wharves and rolling 
stock of the railroad. The exposed position of the 
place left it at the mercy of the United States cruisers 
which occasionally visited it, and blockade-running 
was not revived. 

Farther down the coast is Homosassa, known and 
loved by two generations of fishermen. Another fifty 
miles takes one to Tarpon Springs, the "Venice of the 
South." A study of the topography of the place and 
that of the adjacent territory shows the appropriate- 
ness of the title. Never was a city more prettily set 
in the midst of a network of bayous. Its name is 
derived from a great spring in a bayou whose limpid 
waters are a favorite place for the tarpon to disport 
themselves. 



The West Coast 137 

The largest sponge fisheries in the world make 
Tarpon Springs their port. The industry is carried 
on by Greeks who go out in tlie Gulf ten to twenty 
miles from shore, in water that varies from a score to 
six score feet in depth, and, clad in diving suits, get 
the sponges from the rocks and coral reefs. They 
have about two hundred vessels of from five to one 
hundred tons burden. The Greeks nearly all dwell 
In a community of their own at the northern limits 
of the city. Many of the people are out on the sponge 
vessels most of the time. The industry brings about 
a million dollars a year to the place. 

There are no better or safer cruising grounds than 
the waters in the vicinity of Tarpon Springs, and there 
is no better bathing than on the Gulf beaches. Near 
at hand are a number of delightful islands with pictur- 
esque tropical growths that make the finest of camp- 
ing and picnic grounds. A trip up the Anclote River, 
which joins the Gulf on the borders of the city, offers 
such attractions that nearly every day throughout the 
entire winter excursion parties come to Tarpon Springs 
from other West Coast towns to take this river trip. 
The stream is deep, and a good current keeps it clean, 
and it is charmingly crooked. Its banks are generally 
high; and the tropical jungle which lines them, and 
the alligators that may be seen basking in the sun, 
make a romantic setting that thrills the visitor with 
delight. The beauty of the river increases the farther 
up one goes, until the branches of the bordering trees, 



138 Highways and Byways of Florida 

with their adornment of airplants and of yellow jas- 
mine and other vines, meet overhead. 

Two miles north of this river is Trouble Creek, along 
the shores of which is an outcrop of blue flint rock. 
The banks of the stream show abundant evidence of 
having been occupied by Indian makers of arrowheads 
and other implements of flint. 

A few miles more to the north is the Pithlachascootee 
River, the rocky shores of which are densely over- 
grown with palmettos. There is excellent fishing in 
the stream, and on the reefs near its mouth splendid 
oysters are obtained. The country neighboring the 
river and for a hundred miles up the coast furnishes as 
good hunting as can be found in the state. Quail, 
ducks, deer, and wild turkeys frequent the wilds, and 
occasionally a bear or catamount can be found. 

Florida's most important commercial city on the 
Gulf coast is Tampa. It is on a point of land at the 
head of the eastern arm of Tampa Bay, near where 
Fort Brooke was established in 1821 immediately 
after Florida was acquired by the United States. The 
site of the fort, the old barracks of which are still 
standing, is now a public park. Within the park limits 
are the remains of several aboriginal mounds, the 
largest of which is about one hundred feet across and 
seven to nine feet high. Split and charred bones found 
there by the United States troops when they first oc- 
cupied the locality were suggestive of cannibalism on 
the part of the mound-builders. 



The West Coast 139 

Until after the Seminole War, Tampa was almost the 
only place on the Gulf coast of the peninsula where a 
white man could live in security. Even there, safety 
was only secured by the presence of a strong garrison. 
All supplies for the interior posts had to be hauled 
under escort over the military roads that led north 
and east. 

In November, 1862, Tampa was shelled by United 
States gunboats to dislodge the small Confederate 
garrison, and during the rest of the war an occasional 
visit from a Union gunboat sufficed to prevent the 
place being made a harbor for blockade runners. 

The city has many cigar factories, the workers in 
which live in a section known as "Little Havana." 
Here dwell about twenty-five thousand Cubans and 
Spaniards who use their native language, and have 
established a typical Cuban city on American soil. 

Eight miles south Is the port from which the ocean 
steamers sail. A wharf nearly a mile long runs out into 
the bay to reach deep water. At Its end is a unique 
hotel where one may fish from the veranda, and you 
easily fancy yourself on shipboard. 

At Indian Hill, a score of miles southeast of Tampa, 
are enormous shell heaps, some of which are eight hun- 
dred feet long and twenty or thirty feet high, and are 
visible several miles at sea. These shell mounds are 
found in many parts of Florida. They are supposed 
to be the natural accumulation of waste material in 
the vicinity of an Indian camp. When a campsite 



140 Highways and Byways of Florida 

had been chosen the savages would gather around a 
fire made on the ground to do their cooking and eating 
from day to day. They would toss the shells and bones 
behind them, and presently a circular bank of shells 
would be formed around the fire, and the central space 
would be so inconvenient that the fire would be shifted 
to the top of the bank, and the process repeated. In- 
deed, the remains of such successive fires with dark 
burnt shells and fragments of pottery have been found 
in the mounds. Any one who has camped for a few days 
near a Florida oyster-bed must have noticed the 
phenominal rapidity with which the piles of shells in- 
crease. The Indians, who lived mainly by fishing and 
hunting must have heaped up the waste still faster. 

A popular West Coast resort is St. Petersburg near 
the tip of the peninsula which separates Tampa Bay 
on the west from the Gulf of Mexico. It has a character 
of its own due to the fact that it does not cater to 
fashion and frivolity, but attracts people who seek 
quiet and rest. The inhabitants call it the "Sunshine 
City." A St. Petersburg newspaper has gained a great 
deal of notoriety by offering free its entire edition on 
every day that the sun fails to shine. Then the news- 
boys pass the papers to any persons who will accept 
them; but the sunless days do not average more than 
half a dozen in a year. 

St. Petersburg claims to be the greatest salt-water 
fishing center of the eastern coast of the United States. 
The neighboring waters teem with the various game 




A Bellair bridze 



The West Coast 141 

fish, and excellent fishing may be enjoyed in the vi- 
cinity the year around, but the best months for tarpon, 
the most notable of all game fish in the sea, are April 
and May. The city has its Tarpon Club, the president 
of which is the person who has caught the heaviest 
tarpon during the previous tournament season. 

The natural home of the tarpon, or "Silver King" 
as it is also called, is the Gulf of Mexico, and it is es- 
sentially a tropical fish, though stray specimens have 
been found as far north as Cape Cod, and they are 
fairly abundant on some parts of the Florida east 
coast. Adult specimens often exceed six feet in length. 
They rarely weigh more than two hundred pounds, 
but some have been caught which were twice that 
heavy. It is herring-like in shape and general ap- 
pearance, with an enormous mouth and large fierce 
eyes. Its glistening silvery scales are sometimes three 
inches across. The tarpon travel in schools varying from 
five to a hundred, and may be seen in the shoal water 
where they feed prowling about and stirring up the 
muddy bottom. 

Only since 1885 has the tarpon been recognized as 
a game fish. Before that they were sometimes har- 
pooned or taken In a seine, but their great size, strength, 
and agility enabled them to defy most devices for their 
capture. The performance of a tarpon is so picture- 
esque and thrilling that anglers come from all over the 
world to try their hands at catching this marvelous 
game fish. It is so wonderfully acrobatic that it some- 



142 Highways and Byways of Florida 

times leaps entirely over a boat. Etiquette prescribes 
that after a tarpon is hooked, other boats near by shall 
up anchor and keep out of the way. The struggle to 
secure it may last for hours, and experienced fishermen 
say that the protracted excitement of landing a tarpon 
far exceeds that afforded by the salmon, hitherto con- 
sidered the monarch of game fishes. As soon as it 
takes the bait it begins a series of leaps, striving to 
shake itself clear of hook and line. It is said to be 
capable of making a horizontal leap of twenty or thirty 
feet. If you are In a small boat and the fish is large 
you may be capsized. You are likely to have sore 
fingers, and will possibly lose a finger-nail before the 
tarpon can be brought alongside and gafi"ed. The 
flesh Is only moderately good for eating, and usually, 
after capture, the tarpon Is turned back Into the water. 
Such is the exertion of catching one that some men 
are so exhausted and unnerved they will never fish 
for them again, but most are anxious for another 
tussle. 

Interesting places abound in the vicinity of Tampa 
Bay; and farther south are many more, Including 
Manatee amid its orange groves, and Sarasota with 
its shell beaches and fine bathing. At Sarasota in one 
recent year the thermometer registered exactly the 
same on July 4th, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. 
A famous resort for sportsmen Is Charlotte Harbor 
which oflfers "the best tarpon fishing In the world." 
Besides tarpon, its angling possibilities include the 




"^ 




A schoolhouse in Lee Coutity 



The West Coast 143 

catching of a ladyfish that weighs six pounds, a snook 
that weighs twelve pounds, a mackerel shark that 
weighs seventy-five pounds, and a kingfish that weighs 
fifty pounds. 

The ladyfish is "the quickest thing that swims." 
The voracious snook takes both spoon and bait, and 
jumps clear of the water. It is a vicious fighter. But 
perhaps none of the finny tribe is more spectacular 
than the game kingfish. It will jump from five to 
twenty feet in the air with the bait in its mouth, and 
hits the water with a rush that is hard to stop. When- 
ever you go out in a boat here with hook and line 
you do well to take along a harpoon in order to be 
ready for sharks, turtles, porpoises, and devil fish. 

It is considered probable that Cordova discovered 
Charlotte Harbor in 15 17, and that he landed there to 
hunt slaves. But he was so warmly received by the 
natives that his stay was short. 

Down on the Caloosahatchee River is Fort Myers, 
nestling in the shade of its cocoa palms. Here are the 
largest grapefruit groves in the world; and here the in- 
ventor, Edison, has a winter home. Fort Myers is the 
outfitting point for cruises down the coast into the 
bird-haunted labyrinths of the Ten Thousand Islands. 

Among these islands you thread your way by a net- 
work of rivers that divide and subdivide into creeks, 
which often will give passage only to skiffs. Even 
then you may have to clear a course with knives 
through vines and overhanging branches. In some 



144 Highways and Byways of Florida 

places are hundreds of tiny mangrove islands in each 
square mile amid the shallow channels. 

Population in this remote southwestern section of 
Florida is almost non-existent. Court justice is con- 
sidered too expensive and uncertain for such a region, 
and the people are largely left to settle their own quar- 
rels. Many deserters from the Confederate service 
and refugees resorted to the Ten Thousand Islands 
during the Civil War. Since then there has never been 
a time when the islands were not an asylum for moon- 
shiners, murderers, chain-gang criminals, and smug- 
glers. You find men who turn away their faces when 
they meet you, and who refuse to tell you their names. 
These outcasts trap otters, and shoot alligators and 
plume-birds. They sell the skins through the Indians, 
or to dealers who go to them secretly. Sometimes they 
kill one another in a quarrel over a bird rookery. 

Occasionally there may be seen in the wilderness a 
modest shack surrounded by a field of sugar cane. 
The crop is likely to be used in distilling illicit whisky. 
Hunters and outlaws come to imbibe the liquor, and 
so do the Indians. An Indian will bring his family and 
camp for weeks in one gloriously prolonged drunk, 
which wipes out the product of a season's shooting and 
trapping. Latterly the Indian has learned to make 
fire water for himself in crude stills which he constructs 
from old iron cans and pipes. 

One of the most picturesque characters of this wilder- 
ness was a man named Wilson. A Key West sheriff 



The West Coast 145 

who went to his plantation to arrest him was promptly 
disarmed and set to work in the canefield. Two days 
later he was released and his gun was restored to him 
unloaded. He went away with professions of friend- 
ship for his host. When he arrived at Key West he 
reported that Mr. Wilson was the only man on the 
coast who was doing anything, and that he ought to 
be let alone. 

Much of the southern end of the Florida mainland, 
as well as the Ten Thousand Islands, has been chiefly 
built with soil rescued from the water by the red man- 
grove, a tree curiously adapted for the purpose. The 
mangrove's dark evergreen foliage and its countless 
exposed roots, somber red in color, hem in all the is- 
lands, and border the bays and water-courses of the 
region almost universally. It puts forth a few flowers 
throughout the year, but covers itself with yellow 
blossoms at midsummer. The seeds germinate while 
the fruit is still on the tree, and not until eight months 
after blossom time are they prepared to leave the 
parent stem. Then they have attained a length of 
from six to eighteen inches, and have so weakened the 
supporting fibers, as they sway in the breezes, that 
they break loose. Many of these miniature trees drop 
straight down into the shallow water below. There 
they attach themselves firmly to the soil, and soon a 
flourishing young family is established under the 
parent tree. 

Myriads of other seedlings drift away to found 



146 Highways and Byways of Florida 

colonies on the first bank to which current, wind, or 
tide may chance to bear them. The waters at this 
season are filled with the pioneer mangroves. Nature 
so ballasts the little craft that they float upright, and 
when left by the receding tide on a bank or shoal, the 
roots get a grip, the leaves unfold, and the process of 
forming a new island, or of extending an old shore line, 
is begun. Sometimes a single tree starts alone, and 
sometimes a thousand commence housekeeping to- 
gether. As the trunk grows, the lower portion dies 
away leaving the tree supported by the stilt-like roots 
that sprout from stem and branches. The mangrove, 
anchored by these aerial roots, holds the shifting sands 
or unstable mud, and gathers more. A single tree, 
separate from companions, resembles an ungainly 
centipede of gigantic proportions. So freely do the 
roots subdivide, extend, and interlace that they form 
a dense jungle which is almost impassable to human 
beings. But panthers glide gracefully through it, and 
it does not seriously impede the passage of the bear, 
nor even that of the antlered deer. 

The wood was for a long time accounted worthless. 
It is not even fit for fuel. A fire is more likely to be 
put out than encouraged by it. Recently, however, 
the bark has been found to be rich in tannin, and 
camps have been established to exploit its possibilities 
In this line. 

Oysters flourish among the roots that reach down 
into the shallows, and cling to them in great bunches, 



The West Coast 147 

many of which weigh as much as fifty pounds. Reefs 
of oysters form beneath the trees and do their part in 
the developing of new land. At length the ground is 
lifted above the tides, and cypress trees begin to flour- 
ish in it. The years pass on, and portions of the swamp 
develop into knolls or "hammocks" on which grow 
gnarled live oaks, stately pines, royal palms, and 
fragrant magnolias. 



IX 

THE SEMINOLES 

THE native inhabitants of Florida were orginally 
largely agricultural, but they were also bold 
navigators and brave warriors. There were 
several confederacies in the peninsula, and these were 
often at war with each other. All the early explorers 
speak admiringly of the native Floridians. They were 
of large stature, light olive brown in color, and given 
to tattooing their skins. They were very intelligent, 
and often possessed courteous dignified manners. At 
first they were disposed to be friendly to Europeans, 
but they naturally resented attempts at conquest, and 
proved their courage on many a hard-fought field. 

Early in the eighteenth century serious dissensions 
arose among the Indians of Alabama, and a strong party 
seceded and Invaded the northern central section of 
Florida, There they subjugated the surrounding tribes, 
whose strength had been broken by the Spanish scourge, 
and they became known as Seminoles, which means 
outlaws. Other northern tribes followed their example, 
and within a hundred years the Seminoles had overrun 
the state, and the native Floridians had disappeared or 
Intermarried to an extent that left few traces of their 
existence. 

148 



The Seminoles 149 

Toward the end of the Spanish dominion the mixed 
tribes of Seminoles, Creeks, and runaway negroes began 
to commit depredations on the frontiers of Alabama 
and Georgia. No redress could be obtained from the 
Spanish authorities, and at length United States troops 
carried the war into Florida. When General Jackson 
led an expedition against the Seminoles in 18 18 he dis- 
covered at Miccosukee "three hundred scalps of men, 
women, and children, most of them fresh." In this 
foray Jackson severely punished the Indians, hung their 
chiefs, and even executed two Englishmen who were 
supposed to be instigating the savages and supplying 
them with munitions of war. 

The Florida country was particularly well suited to 
the Indians. It was well watered, and abounded with 
game. By selling the skins of the deer, the bear, the 
panther, and the wolf to traders they were able to get 
clothing and other necessaries. They had roamed in 
the peninsula from the remotest period in untrammeled 
freedom, Spain had established only a few settlements, 
none of which was far from the coast, and had exercised 
little or no authority over the Indians. But no sooner 
had Florida been ceded to the United States than the 
aggressive lawless elements of the then frontier states 
of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi went in to possess 
the land. They had been doing this in an underhand 
way for a generation. The new settlers showed little re- 
spect for the boundaries of those sections which be- 
longed to the Indians, and the rich agricultural capa- 



150 Highways and Byways of Florida 

bilities of the territory caused the demand to wax 
urgent that the Indians be removed, for they occupied 
some of the best lands. 

Another source of irritation was the fact that the 
wilds of the peninsula lured fugitive slaves from the 
Southern states. The Seminoles harbored these slaves 
and would neither return them to their owners nor per- 
mit the owners to come and get them. Some of the 
fugitives intermarried with their protectors, and such 
bonds were estabhshed between the two races that 
the Indians would not make any treaty which did not 
provide protection for their negro companions. 

For a long time the black men and red lived together 
contentedly with all their simple wants well supplied. 
At length, however, men from the states to the north 
came with chains and bloodhounds to catch the runaway 
slaves, and they not only carried off the negroes, but 
stole the Indians' horses and cattle, and committed 
other depredations, which in the end led to open hos- 
tilities. At that time the Seminoles numbered about 
four thousand, and nearly a thousand negroes were 
associated with them. They had scattered plantations 
and villages throughout the territory. 

In the course of many "talks" a proposition was 
made to the Indians by the United States offering 
strong inducements to go West, and a treaty was made 
at Paynes Landing on the Ocklawaha River in May, 1832, 
whereby It was agreed that a delegation of Seminole 
leaders should visit the proposed tribal reservation in 



The Seminoles 151 

Arkansas. The members of the delegation spent several 
months there, and when they returned they told the 
government officials that Arkansas was a land where 
snow covered the ground, and frosts chilled the bodies 
of men. "We are not willing to go," they said. "You 
would send us among bad Indians, with whom we could 
never be at rest. We are happy here. If we are torn 
from these forests our heartstrings will snap." 

Nevertheless, by a system of coercion, fifteen chiefs 
were induced to make their cross-marks on a paper 
agreeing to emigrate, and the United States sent troops 
to compel the removal. At once the Indians began to 
gather their crops, remove the squaws and children to 
places of safety, and prepare for battle. Guns and much 
powder and bullets were obtained from Cuban fishing 
smacks in exchange for furs. The Indians made flour 
from the roasted acorns of the live oaks, and the pal- 
metto trees supplied them with cabbage. The woods 
were full of meat. There were deer and bear, and an 
abundance of smaller game such as wild turkey, turtle, 
and squirrel. 

A portion of the Indians would have avoided trouble 
with the government by migrating, but the large ma- 
jority opposed the plan. All the negroes among the 
Seminoles were against it, and some of them were very 
prominent in the councils of the savages. In the opposi- 
tion party was that notable chief, Osceola, whose name 
means Rising Sun. He was exceedingly violent in his 
denunciation of the project. His mother belonged to 



152 Highways and Byways of Florida 

the Red Stick tribe, a branch of the Creeks. She mar- 
ried an Enghshman, who was a trader among the Indi- 
ans. Osceola was born in Georgia on the Tallapoosa 
River about 1800. When he was eight years old a quar- 
rel among the Creeks resulted in his mother's taking 
him off with her to the Okefinokee Swamp. 

In 1 8 18, when General Jackson was invading Florida 
in his warfare on the Seminoles, Osceola retreated with 
a small party south as far as Peace Creek, where he 
settled. A few years afterward he moved to the Big 
Swamp in the neighborhood of Fort King, now Ocala. 
He married a squaw, one of whose ancestors was a 
fugitive slave, and one day, when the young warrior 
and his wife visited the trading post of the fort to buy 
supplies, she was seized and carried off into slavery. 
Osceola, wild with rage and grief, made strenuous but 
unsuccessful attempts to rescue her. 

He was a man of fine figure and splendid physique. 
His head was always encircled by a blue turban sur- 
mounted with waving black eagle plumes, and about his 
waist he wore a red sash. Fie had a natural gift of 
eloquence like most of his race. 

When General Wiley Thompson, the Indian agent 
at Fort King, reminded Osceola that the Seminoles 
had promised to leave for the West, and ordered him 
to sign the emigration list, the young chief pretended 
to be about to make his mark on the treaty, but in- 
stead stuck his knife through it. For this act of con- 
tempt he was manacled and confined in the fort. But 




The Tomuka River near Ormond 



The Seminoles 153 

when he presently promised to bring thither one hun- 
dred warriors to sign the paper the irons were removed, 
and he was set free. At once he collected a strong force 
armed with knives and rifles, and supplied with plenty 
of ammunition. 

The first definite demonstration of hostility in the 
Seminole War occurred in June, 1835, when some 
whites discovered a party of five Indians a long dis- 
tance outside their boundaries butchering a beef, and 
disarmed and flogged them. Two Indian hunters 
came up and fired on the whites, and when the skirmish 
ended two Indians had been killed, and three white 
men wounded, one of them fatally. A few weeks later 
a dispatch rider carrying mail from Fort Brooke, now 
Tampa, to Fort King was killed and his body sunk 
in a pond. Next an old chief who had started prepara- 
tions to emigrate, and had gathered his cattle to sell 
them, was met on the trail to his village by Osceola 
and a party of Miccosukles and shot down. 

Afterward Osceola with twenty of his boldest warriors 
went to wreak vengeance on General Thompson. 
He lingered in the neighborhood of the Indian agency 
at Fort King seven days waiting for a favorable oppor- 
tunity. That opportunity came on December 28th, 
when the general and a lieutenant enjoying their 
after dinner cigars were walking toward the suttler's 
store about a mile from the fort. The Indians fired, 
and the two men fell dead. Thompson was hit by 
fourteen bullets. The Seminoles proceeded to the 



154 Highways and Byways of Florida 

store where they shot five more whites, stole what they 
could carry away, and set fire to the building. The 
garrison at the fort numbered only forty-six, and they 
deemed it imprudent to sally forth against a force of 
Indians which they fancied was far larger than their 
own. 

That same day a much more serious massacre oc- 
curred about fifty miles farther south. On the 24th 
of the month one hundred and ten United States Reg- 
ulars, with a six pounder and a light wagon containing 
ten days' provisions, left Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay 
to reenforce Fort King. They did not know that 
hostilities had actually begun, and no precautions were 
taken to guard against ambuscade, except marching 
with loaded guns. At ten o'clock on the morning of 
the 28th, as they were going along the military road 
not far from the Wahoo Swamp and the Withlacoochee 
River in a broad expanse of grassy open pine woods, 
a withering fire was suddenly delivered by a large 
party of nearly two hundred Indians concealed only a 
few rods away in the scrub palmetto that skirted the 
road. The savages were headed by a chief named 
Jumper, often called "the lawyer," who had appealed 
to all the warriors to join him, if they were not cowards. 
General Jackson had oifered a reward of five hundred 
dollars for the capture of Jumper. Nearly half the 
whites, including the commander. Major Dade, fell 
at the first volley, and the column was thrown into 
confusion. But the survivors promptly rallied, fired 



The Seminoles 155 

five or six rounds from the sIx-pounder, and drove 
the foe from the palmetto thicket over a ridge with 
their bayonets. Then they cut down pine trees and 
made a low triangular breastwork. Behind this they 
all lay down, when the Indians renewed their attack 
after a respite of less than an hour, and loaded and 
fired as best they could. The savages persisted in 
the assault until the last man behind the barricade had 
fallen. That night they returned to the Wahoo Swamp 
with the bloody scalps of their victims. They gave 
the scalps to their medicine man, who placed them 
on a pole ten feet high, around which the warriors 
danced after smearing their faces with the blood of 
their foes and drinking freely of fire-water. 

Only two persons in the government force were not 
slaughtered. One of these was a wounded soldier who 
bribed an Indian to spare him, and after hiding in the 
palmetto scrub until the enemy was gone, crawled on 
his hands and knees a distance of sixty miles to Fort 
Brooke. The other was a negro slave who served the 
whites as a guide, and who was the only unwounded 
person in the command. He is supposed to have 
known the time and place at which the attack was to 
be made, and to have separated himself from the 
troops beforehand. As soon as the firing began he 
joined the Indians and aided them in the massacre. 
For long afterward he was the steady companion of 
Coacoochee (in English the name means Wild Cat), 
one of the most warlike of the Seminole chiefs, and 



156 Highways and Byways of Florida 

he was still Wild Cat's companion when that chief 
took up a forced abode in the West. 

Fort Brooke learned of the massacre a few days 
after the event through the wounded soldier, but the 
garrison was not strong enough to venture out. The 
news did not reach Fort King until February. A force 
from there visited the scene of the tragedy on the 20th 
of that month. They first saw some broken and scat- 
tered boxes, then a cart, and the two oxen which had 
drawn it lying dead with their yokes still on them. 
About thirty bodies of the dead whites lay behind the 
breastwork, every man evidently where he had been 
shot dead at his post. Beyond the breastwork were 
other bodies, most of them scattered. The remains 
of the victims were burled on the spot, but in 1842 
were removed to the military burial-ground in St. 
Augustine. 

This massacre astounded the country. No such 
event had ever before occurred In the annals of Indian 
warfare. It seemed incomprehensible that two entire 
companies of trained soldiers fully armed and bravely 
officered should be annihilated by a not very numerous 
band of half naked savages. 

The Indians quickly overran the country, and the 
long and bloody war began in earnest. Early in 1837 
arrangements were made with them for their removal, 
and a large number assembled near Tampa with Black 
Dirt, Alligator, Cloud, the Prophet, Shiver and Shakes, 
Tigertail, and other chiefs. Provisions and clothing 



The Seminoles 157 

were distributed, and twenty-two vessels came to 
carry the Indians to New Orleans. But excuses were 
made, and the departure was delayed from week to 
week. Many whites who had abandoned their homes 
returned in the belief that the war had ended. It 
had been agreed that the Seminoles who emigrated 
should be paid for their cattle and ponies, and take 
along their other property and the negroes who were 
among them. Everything might have gone well had 
not the slaveholders begun to seize the negroes. The 
Seminoles thought themselves betrayed and fled to 
their former fastnesses. 

Gradually, however, they were pushed southward, 
and the last general engagement was fought on Christ- 
mas Day, 1837, o^ the northern shore of Lake Okecho- 
bee. It was a hand to hand struggle in the depths of 
a horrible swamp. The Indians were beaten and never 
afterward faced the Americans in force. 

At the end of two years of warfare fifteen hundred 
Indians had been captured by hook or by crook and 
transferred to the West. The savages had learned 
that it was not in fighting set battles that their true 
strength lay, and now they confined themselves to 
bushwhacking In small parties. To outmaneuver 
them was very difficult. The commanding general 
said, "The greater portion of southern Florida is an 
unexplored wilderness, of the interior of which we are 
as ignorant as of the interior of China." 

The troops endured great hardship and privation. 



158 Highways and Byways of Florida 

They were exposed to drenching rains, and to the 
diseases of a wild swampy country with an almost 
torrid climate, they waded rivers and made long 
marches over the hot sands and into the jungles. 
Encumbered with their wagons and field pieces, they 
were at a considerable disadvantage in their move- 
ments as compared with the Indians, who could swim 
the streams and move about freely through the wilder- 
ness on their narrow trails, or even where there were 
no trails. The savages had a marvelous capacity for 
suddenly appearing and as suddenly vanishing. Often 
they mystified their pursuers by escaping from the 
very clutches of those following them. During one 
of the campaigns a party of soldiers surrounded an 
Indian who had sought refuge in a small pool of swampy 
water. They thought he could not possibly get away, 
but after a minute search they were unable to find 
him, and abandoned the quest. On a later occasion he 
was not so fortunate. The troops captured him, and he 
told how, when surrounded in the pool, he was lying be- 
neath the very log on which one of the party stood, with 
his entire body under water except the tip of his nose. 

Such was the difficulty of finding the Indians that 
thirty-five bloodhounds were brought from Cuba, 
where they cost one hundred and fifty dollars each, 
to be employed in tracking the Invisible red men. 
But they had been trained to hunt negroes, and would 
not follow the scent of the Indians. 

One device of the whites was to establish block- 



The Semlnoles 159 

houses at a great many points, each with mounted 
scouts who were always on the search in their respec- 
tive districts. Tragedies multiphed on all sides, yet 
there were frequent intervals when warfare was sus- 
pended while efforts were made to negotiate a peace. 
The wily Indians were always ready to "talk" in the 
spring, for if they could get the whites to cease hos- 
tilities, then they had an opportunity to rest, draw 
rations, and get some sort of a crop raised by the 
squaws off in the woods. That done, they disappeared 
and resumed their depredations. It was to one of 
these talks that Wild Cat came to meet the govern- 
ment officials in a remarkable costume which he had 
made up from the properties of some actors whom 
he had ambushed and plundered not far from St. 
Augustine. When he was told that unless the Indians 
emigrated the United States would exterminate them, 
he responded that the Great Spirit might exterminate 
them, but the pale-faces could not, else why had they 
not done it before ^ 

After the war had dragged on for more than five 
years the powerful government of the United States 
was still baffled by a tribe of Indians reduced in num- 
bers to only a few hundreds. There had been seven 
successive commanding generals. Now an eighth was 
appointed — General Worth. Under his guidance the 
campaign against the Indians was pushed steadily 
winter and summer, and they were followed into the 
most remote of their swamp retreats. Their leading 



i6o Highways and Byways of Florida 

chief now was Wild Cat. Since he escaped from 
Fort Marion he had been a most daring and unrelent- 
ing enemy of the whites. He refused to do any more 
conferring with them until the summer of 1841, when 
his little daughter was captured. Then he went to 
General Worth's camp, trusting once more to the pro- 
tection of a white flag. The meeting with his child 
was very affecting. General Worth treated him with 
such consideration that they became friends, and 
Wild Cat agreed to emigrate with his people. While 
returning to his warriors, he was captured through 
some misunderstanding and transported to New 
Orleans in chains. But General Worth had him 
promptly brought back, and apologized to him. With 
Wild Cat's help, the Indians were persuaded to emi- 
grate, a few at a time, though none left except regret- 
fully. As they sailed away from Tampa Bay, leaving 
behind their home shores, their wails and anguish 
touched the hearts of the most hardened sailors. A 
small remainder, estimated at one hundred warriors 
and two hundred women and children, determined to 
dwell in the Everglades rather than leave their native 
land, and as they could not be caught they were al- 
lowed to remain unmolested. 

Thus ended a war which had lasted nearly seven 
years and had kept operating in Florida troops varying 
in number from three thousand to nine thousand. 
It had cost the United States fifteen hundred lives 
and about twenty million dollars. 



X 

THE EVERGLADES 

THERE is a compelling charm about the un- 
known, and in the Everglades that charm is 
still potent. They have always been a region 
of mystery. Stories are told of pirate ships laden with 
booty being chased to the Florida coast, where they 
evaded their pursuers by taking refuge within the 
fastnesses of the Glades. The winding streams of the 
southern part of the peninsula are reputed to flow 
over treasures in scuttled boats, and their banks to be 
the hiding-place of hoards of buried wealth left by the 
old sea-rovers. Much money has been spent in at- 
tempts to discover the treasures. 

Although the mild winter of Florida draws constantly 
increasing numbers thither, the tip of the peninsula is 
the last portion of America to be intimately explored. 
Our own surveys of some of the more intricate parts 
of its coast have not been dependable until recently. 
The first organized expedition crossed the Everglades 
in 1883, and maps made not long ago portrayed good- 
sized rivers half a hundred miles long traversing the 
region, where, in reality, the vague waterways are 
scarcely worthy to be called streams. The Everglades 

161 



l62 Highways and Byways of Florida 

occupy a shallow basin one hundred and thirty miles 
north and south and seventy east and west, which 
makes a total area much the same as that of the state 
of Connecticut. Yet this vast expanse, bordered as it 
is by lines of commerce and fashionable travel, is even 
now almost unplotted and unvisited. Its only human 
dwellers are a few hundred Indians who thread its 
lonely water-paths in primitive dugout canoes. 

It is not exactly land, and not exactly water. There 
is too much water to travel by land, and too much 
rank saw-edged grass to journey freely by water. The 
only relief to its level prairie-like monotony is a dotting 
of islets heavy with tropical growths, and usually 
plumed with one or two palmettos. Florida is a broad 
limestone mountain-top, much of which is covered by 
a mantle of sand. It has remarkably copious springs, 
and these springs are the source of the water in the 
Everglades. The water forms a veritable lake that 
nowhere is stagnant or wholly at rest. Rains furnish 
only a small percentage of the clear, limpid, and pala- 
table water, and the springs account for the rest. No 
stream of any kind runs into the basin, yet numerous 
creeks and rivers lead out of it. The rim of the basin 
has an altitude of about a dozen feet above low tide. 
On the east it is within three to twelve miles of the 
coast, but on the west side recedes much farther; and 
here lie the dark watery woodlands known as the Big 
Cypress, a trackless labyrinth of swamps, lagoons, 
creeks, and low fertile islands, all deep buried in the 



The Everglades 163 

shadows of a mighty cypress forest. The rock floor of 
the Everglades basin is usually found at a depth not 
exceeding six feet, but in places is twice that far down. 
Wherever it is struck with a pole or an oar it gives out 
a somewhat hollow metallic sound. 

Almost the entire floor is covered with a layer of 
muck, which varies in thickness from a few inches to 
several feet. In this muck grows the saw grass, some- 
times attaining a height of ten feet. Its vigor never 
varies, for neither heat nor cold ever weaken its vicious 
energy. The grass hides the water, save in the numer- 
ous little channels which wind aimlessly about, some- 
times coming to a blank end, sometimes broadening 
into a clear space abloom with pond-lilies. These 
leads or openings are full of promise to the explorer, 
but are usually only a snare. 

Along the eastern and western edges of the lake are 
uncounted islands, some of them alluvial, but most 
outcrops of the rock of the basin covered with a rich 
mold. The former are wet. The latter are habitable, 
and occasionally one will have a dry cultivable area 
hundreds of acres In extent, that responds generously 
to the rather fitful labor of the Semlnoles. The forests 
that cover the islands are very luxuriant. Vines 
abound and attain great size. Wherever the ground 
is dry enough the Florida arrow-root flourishes. This 
is the mainstay of the Semlnoles and supplies delicate 
and digestible flour and starch. Wild flowers are re- 
markably profuse, including rare and lovely orchids. 



164 Highways and Byways of Florida 

On many of the islands grow giant ferns, the fronds of 
which attain a length of ten feet. 

Animal life is fairly abundant in the islanded parts. 
Here deer are found, and now and then a bear or pan- 
ther. Otters are plentiful, and these and alligators are 
hunted by the Seminoles for their skins. There are 
numerous snakes, including the poisonous rattlesnake 
and moccasins, but they do not hang from the trees in 
the fine festoons that used to be pictured. One won- 
ders that the Seminoles should go habitually bare- 
limbed from the knee down in this snake-infested 
wilderness. There is such a dearth of stagnant water 
that few breeding-places are furnished for insects. 
Even mosquitoes are lacking except along the borders, 
but the thick abundant foliage encourages the gnats 
and small flies, and fleas are plentiful in the Indian 
camps. 

In climate the Everglades know neither sudden 
change nor extremes of heat and cold. Winter chill is 
softened, and summer heat made genial. The rainy 
season includes all the summer months and the early 
fall. The rest of the year is fairly dry, though showers 
are not entirely lacking. 

Such are the difficulties of penetrating the Ever- 
glades that what we have learned of them during the 
past three centuries has been learned in fragments, and 
with pain and peril. The first white man to enter 
their confines was a Spaniard who was shipwrecked in 
the Strait of Florida, and became the captive and 




The Cotee River near Sarasota 



The Everglades 165 

slave of a Calos chief who was known as Lord of the 
Everglades. The tribe called the whole region May- 
aimi, a name which still persists in that of Miami, and 
they called the Everglades the Lake of the Sweet 
Water. 

The Spanish captive's name for them was the Lake 
of the Holy Spirit. He was among the Indians for 
seventeen years, during which time he was concerned 
chiefly in a search for gold and for the spring of fade- 
less youth. He found no gold, and though he affirmed 
that he bathed in every pool and spring his youth 
departed, and he died. 

The Calos tribe presently disappeared from the 
region, and at length a remnant of the Seminoles settled 
in the Everglades which they called the Grassy-water. 
The seven years' war with the whites had not ended, 
and later fresh difficulties arose, with the result that 
military detachments made various incursions into the 
Glades from 1841 to 1856. One of these, which is 
fairly typical, occurred in June, 1855. Sixty-three 
men with an Indian guide set out from the eastern 
edge in canoes. When water leads failed them the 
boats were forced through the saw grass, partly by 
poling, partly by wading and shoving. Often the 
grass had to be cut away in front, and the men suffered 
greatly from wounds made by its sharp-toothed edges. 
At night they had to sleep camped in the canoes. 
Finally the grass barrier became so dense they were 
obliged to turn back, after having gone a winding way 



i66 Highways and Byways of Florida 

of one hundred and twenty miles, or, in a direct line, 
fifty-three miles. 

The expedition of 1883, which has been referred to, 
was undertaken by four white men and six negro 
oarsmen. They had two large canoes and several 
smaller ones, and carried provisions for sixty days. 
The start was made October 21st, from Punta Rasa 
at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, and on the first 
day of November the party reached Lake Okechobee. 
Beyond that they encountered a dense tangle of grass, 
scrub-willow, and custard-apple through which they 
were only able to advance a few hundred yards a day. 
Presently this was succeeded by watery prairies of 
saw grass to which they set fire, but as the water here 
was only four feet deep progress continued to be slow 
and laborious. Not until late in the month did they 
find deeper water. Then they got along faster, and 
at last descended the Shark River to Whitewater 
Bay at the tip of the peninsula. 

A more ambitious expedition was undertaken in 
the early spring of 1892. Twenty-one men with two 
cypress skiffs and two canvas boats entered the Glades 
from Fort Shackelford in the middle of the peninsula 
about forty miles south of Lake Okechobee. They 
expected to travel five miles a day, but even this low 
rate could not be maintained. Four days after starting 
it became necessary to leave behind one of the skifi"s 
and some of the baggage. Leaders and laborers 
worked alike, often standing waist deep in water and 



The Everglades 167 

muck, cutting away the saw grass to make an opening 
for the boats, which they then shoved ahead by main 
strength. At times portages were unavoidable, and 
the men had to carry the boats' cargoes on their backs. 
A burden bearer would frequently get into a mudhole 
up to his waist, and was only able to extricate himself 
by laying hold of a boat. 

The party camped at night on small islands when 
they could, but if none was available some slept in the 
boats, and others cut saw grass, piled it on that which 
was growing, and spread over the pile heavy rubber 
blankets, thus contriving a rude swaying bed. Sev- 
eral of the men gave out from incessant and arduous 
labor, and provisions ran short so that only half ra- 
tions were served, eked out by terrapin and a few fish 
and birds procured along the way. More baggage 
was abandoned. Distant Indian fires had been seen 
from time to time, and on April 4th the men saw and 
hailed an old Seminole whom they persuaded to guide 
them to Miami. There they arrived haggard and 
exhausted three days later. 

The easiest natural approaches to the Glades are 
by way of the New River and the Miami on the east 
coast. The other outlets afi"ord only difficult pathways 
at best. The New River flows forth in a somewhat 
sweeping but gentle stream. The Miami has worn 
for itself a way through the rocky rim of the great 
basin, and comes tumbling in a noisy flood down a 
ten foot fall in three hundred yards. 



i68 Highways and Byways of Florida 

There is undoubtedly agricultural value in the 
rich deposit of mud at the bottom of the great inland 
lagoon, and if the water could be withdrawn the region 
would attract population and be marvelously pro- 
ductive. The reclamation of the Everglades has been 
a subject of public discussion from almost the time of 
Florida's acquisition by the United States. The 
first contract for draining the region was made in 
1 88 1, and work continued for several years, but with- 
out very important results. In 1906 the task was 
resumed, and considerable progress has been made 
in opening canals to the coast. It is estimated that 
the work now under way will make available one 
million acres of land particularly adapted to raising 
sugar-cane, oranges, and garden truck. 

The drainage channels that have been opened make 
crossing the Everglades a favorite trip for Florida 
tourists. There is considerable advantage for sight- 
seers in having a short route across the lower part 
of the state, but the novelty of it is the chief attraction. 
The usual course is between Fort Myers and West 
Palm Beach. You 'leave Fort Myers in a little launch 
which goes up the Caloosahatchee. The river Is 
broad at first, but after a while becomes narrow and 
tortuous. You stop for the night at the village of 
Labelle on the borders of the Everglades. The next 
morning you go on up the river and through a canal 
to Lake Okechobee. The canals have lowered the 
water of the lake so that It is very shallow and has a 



The Everglades 169 

broad border of exposed bottom. Several little light- 
houses have been erected to guide the boats across it. 
Late in the day you arrive at West Palm Beach. 

Some authorities consider the Seminole dwellers 
of the Everglades the most picturesque Indians in the 
United States. Their strange environment, their 
habits of living, and their dress are all romantically 
interesting. For more than a decade after the seven 
years' war ended in 1842 they continued in their 
wilderness retreat unmolested. Then some engineers, 
engaged in a government sui-vey of Florida, camped 
not far from the home of Old Billy Bowlegs, the leading 
chief of his tribe. One day Old Billy was dismayed 
to find that marauders had been in his garden and 
deliberately cut and torn to pieces some banana 
plants which were the pride of his heart. When he 
went to the engineers' camp to complain, the men 
admitted that the deed was theirs, but insolently re- 
fused to make amends. As a result the Indians went 
on the warpath, and the cost to the government was 
a number of lives and thousands of dollars. At the 
end of three years Old Billy Bowlegs and a band of 
one hundred and fifty men, women, and children were 
induced to emigrate. 

The Semlnoles at present in the Everglades probably 
do not number over three hundred. They do not 
make much of a showing in the vast expanse of the 
Everglades that they inhabit. If you journeyed into 
that watery wilderness you might travel scores of 



lyo Highways and Byways of Florida 

miles and not see an Indian, They live in small 
widely separated colonies that usually consist of five 
or six families. A typical camp covers about an acre 
of dry land. The ordinary dwelling consists of six 
upright poles, three on a side, and a gable roof of 
palmetto thatch. It has an earthen floor, and the 
main articles of furniture are large tables which nearly 
fill the interior, and on which the Indians eat and 
sleep. There are chests to hold clothes and tools and 
guns, barrels and boxes for provisions, and a sewing 
machine. An old sheet or blanket generally hangs 
down on the northerly side in winter to keep out the 
winds and rain. In the center of the camp is a circular 
shed used for cooking. Under this is a fire from which 
logs radiate like spokes from the hub of a wheel. As 
the ends burn away, the logs are pushed toward the 
center. 

Any one Is welcome to share the Indians' food with 
them at mealtime. The standard dish is a stew made 
by cooking meat in a large kettle and thickening it 
with vegetables and meal. A spoon is placed in the 
kettle, and each person takes a single mouthful In 
turn, or you can reach in with your fingers and help 
yourself. When food is plentiful the stew kettle is 
seldom empty. 

The squaws wear long calico dresses of blue or 
brown that have bright bands of red or yellow. Their 
most cherished ornaments are strings of colored beads. 
The beads are about the size of a small pea, and the 



The Everglades 171 

preferred colors are turquoise blue and a light red. 
A string of beads is given to the girl baby by the time 
she is a year old, and each notable event in her life 
is made an occasion for giving her more beads. But 
in advanced age some are taken away. There are 
women who carry as much as twenty-five pounds of 
these beads around their necks. They always go 
without head covering and barefooted. Silver coins 
are frequently beaten into various designs and fashioned 
into jewelry for personal adornment. 

The men acquire store clothes such as the whites 
wear, but have an antipathy for trousers. Their 
habits are so amphibious that they prefer bare legs. 
Some still dress in the old Seminole manner, and have 
a tunic tied on with a bright sash, and a red turban 
made of a shawl or many handkerchiefs. An Indian 
will frequently wear half a dozen shirts at the same 
time. Silver earrings are worn very generally by men, 
women and children. 

In the vicinity of the habitations is a little clearing 
where are raised scanty crops of corn, squashes, sweet 
potatoes, and sugar-cane. Chickens and razor-back 
hogs run about wild. 

An old cane mill is used to extract the juice of the 
sugar cane, and this juice is transformed into whiskey 
by means of a still, crudely constructed from an iron 
pot with a wooden cover, a length of iron pipe, and a 
box of water. When under the influence of liquor the 
Seminole is quarrelsome, bites like a dog, fights with 



172 Highways and Byways of Florida 

his companions and all the members of his family, 
but seldom with white men whom he fears even when 
drunk. On occasions of carousal one of the Indians 
always keeps sober to look after the others. After 
a spree in a town of the whites, as soon as the drinkers 
recover their usual gravity and gentleness, they dis- 
appear into the Everglades fastnesses as silently as 
they came. The Indian has a mysterious ability to 
cross the Everglades at will. When the water is high 
he can pole his dugout the entire width of the saw 
grass waste in four days. But he is not a satisfactory 
guide, for he is easily discouraged and lacks resource- 
fulness. If the route through the Everglades is made 
difficult by low water, and canoes have to be hauled 
through mud and saw grass, the Indian is apt to 
conclude that he is sick and needs whiskey. If the 
liquor is not forthcoming he at once gives up his job, 
quite regardless of all contracts. 

Some of the men occasionally work for truck farmers, 
but most of the tribe regard such employment with 
haughty disdain. Nor are the willing ones dependable 
as laborers. An Indian who refused to do some light 
field work at a dollar a day readily accepted an offer 
of a moderate sum for capturing a live otter wanted 
by a zoo, without trap marks or other injury. He 
spent several weeks in securing the creature, and it 
bit his thumb half off, yet he seemed satisfied with 
a compensation that was far less than he could have 
earned hoeing tomatoes. 



. ^tixsaiJa^'dlM^Biei 




■■:. ' T-wTifagiii'Tf°'Ts'T^^ww'»=™ 



J trapper's liume m the Everglades. The cabin is built of 
cypress bark and palmetto leaves 



The Everglades 173 

One of the Indians told a white man that he would 
like to go to school, and that he wanted to attend for 
two weeks. 

"Two weeks are not enough," the white man com- 
mented. "You must go a long time to learn." 

"No," the Indian responded, "me smart — learn 
plenty in two weeks." 

A Seminole who was asked if he ever prayed, re- 
plied: "Um, um, me hunt two, three days, get no deer; 
have big talk to Great Spirit — get deer. Me want 
go in canoe — no water; me talk to Great Spirit — water 
come plenty. Injun, he buy iron pot and pipe and 
sugar-cane water — make much whiskey. Me tell 
him stop. He no stop. Drink, drink, drink, all same 
like white man. Me bury him; then say lilly bit 
prayer." 

The Everglades Indians show little inclination to 
adopt the religion of the white race. Missionaries 
rarely allow a savage to escape them, but they find 
the Seminoles peculiarly elusive. Not many years ago 
a missionary settled near an Indian encampment, 
whereupon the natives moved to the recesses of the 
Big Cypress Swamp, and declared they would go still 
farther if the missionary followed. 

The Seminoles have an annual Corn Dance that 
begins with the new moon in June and lasts from ten 
to twenty days. On the night of the full moon they 
dance around the festal pole from sunset until sunrise. 
The dancing is not as a whole very spirited. Those 



174 Highways and Byways of Florida 

who take part walk around in a circle about thirty 
yards in diameter, and talk, until, at the signal of a 
scream, they jump up and down. Sometimes the 
younger girls vary the performance by a rough-and- 
tumble wrestling match. Casualties are not uncommon 
during these festivities. On one occasion Jimmy 
Jumper ran amuck and killed five Indians before he 
himself was shot down. 

Marriage ties are lightly regarded. One squaw 
got drunk and pounded her husband. He did not 
strike back, but left her and the camp, and married 
a widow who was a score of years his senior, and had 
six children. The tribe inflicted no additional pun- 
ishment. 

Implicit obedience to their leaders Is one of the 
Indian traits. If a man sentenced to death Is granted 
permission to go to town for a few days he is sure to 
return at the time appointed for him to be the chief 
figure in an execution. 

A Seminole often takes the medicine of the white 
man for slight attacks of illness, but in serious cases 
he calls In the medicine man of his own people. One 
of the worst foes of the tribe Is measles, which easily 
becomes epidemic. If the disease Itself does not ter- 
minate the life of the sufferers, the medicine man 
puts in the finishing strokes with his mummery. By 
means of bleedings, poultices, and doslngs he disposes 
of the disease and patient both. 

The dead are left on top of the ground wrapped In 



The Everglades 175 

blankets, and further protected by a pen built over 
the body. When a man's squaw dies he wears his 
shirt till it rots off. When a squaw loses her husband 
she refrains from combing her hair for three months. 
Aside from these formalities little reverence is shown 
for the dead; and when Tom Tiger's grave was robbed, 
and his bones taken for exhibition, the Indians were 
indifferent. 

Surveyors are beginning to invade the Seminole 
country. Lumber, bark, and fruit-growing companies 
are gaining a foothold. Hunters roam over the pre- 
serves in increasing numbers, and the state is going 
ahead energetically with drainage projects. The In- 
dians have become anxious over their future as they 
see the water in the Everglades receding, game becom- 
ing scarcer, and the white men locating on more and 
more of what was formerly an almost Inaccessible wilder- 
ness to civilized humanity. Some adjustment must be 
made for them, but negotiation with them is not easy, 
for their general opinion of the whites is that they are 
"no good and lie too much." 



XI 

SOME NATURALIST VISITORS 

PROBABLY few, if any, American nature lovers 
have been without a keen desire to visit Florida. 
Its very name has charm for them, and the state 
is associated with much that is delectable in weather, 
fruit, and flowers. It fascinates too with its almost 
tropical scenery and with the strange denizens of its 
woodlands and its waters. 

The earliest of our notable naturalists to go to 
Florida was John Bartram of Philadelphia. He was 
the first American botanist, and the greatest in the 
world of his time. After Great Britain acquired Florida 
from Spain in 1765 he was appointed Botanist to his 
Majesty George III for the newly ceded territory, and 
although he had nearly reached the age of threescore 
and ten, he hastened to visit that land whose name 
boded so well for his beloved science. With several 
companions he ascended the St. Johns in an open, boat 
as far as Lake George, daily noting down his experiences 
and observations. He was not a writer of much polish 
or originality of expression, but he was simple and 
genuine and deeply interested in the new phases of 
nature that the trip revealed to him. The following ex- 

176 



borne Naturalist Visitors 177 

tracts from his diary include the chief incidents of his 
primitive voyage : 

"December the 19th, 1765, set out from St. Augus- 
tine early in the morning, which was frosty, the ground 
being covered with a white hoar frost. 

"20th. Set out for Robert Davis's, whose son the 
governor had ordered to take us to search for the head 
of the river St. Johns; and having necessaries provided, 
I, my son William, Mr. Yates, and Mr. Davis, em- 
barked in a battoe. Mr. Davis was not only to con- 
duct us, but also to hunt venison for us, and his 
negro was to row and cook, the governor bearing our 
expenses. 

" 24th. Cold morning, thermometer 50°, wind north- 
west. Blowed pretty 'fresh, but ceased toward night. 
Landed, and Mr. Davis shot a deer, and his negro a 
turkey. I and my son walked in the woods to observe 
the soil and plants with a man that went to fell some 
trees for honey. He felled one that contained only 
some yellow wasps that had taken up their winter 
quarters in a pine tree. We then walked to another 
hollow tree, wherein was a swarm of bees and some 
honey. Both white people and Indians often find 
great quantities of honey and wax, even ten gallons 
out of one tree. The Indians eat much of it with their 
venison and sour oranges, of which they cut oif one end, 
then pour the honey into the pulp, and scoop both out 
as a relishing morsel. 

"26th. Thermometer temperate. Fine day. Wind 



178 Highways and Byways of Florida 

south. Excellent swamps on both sides of the river. 
Turkeys and alligators plenty. 

*' 27th. Landed on a high bluff on the east side of the 
river, then travelled on foot along thick woody ground. 
We came down a steep hill, twenty foot high and four 
or five hundred yards from the river, under the foot 
of which issued a large fountain (big enough to turn a 
mill) of warm clear water of a very offensive taste, and 
smelt like bilge-water, or the washings of a gun-barrel. 
The sediment that adhered to the trees fallen therein, 
looked of a pale white or bluish cast. 

"28th. Saw many alligators, and killed one. 'Tis 
certain that both jaws open by a joint nearly alike. 

"29th. Fish jumping continually. 

"31st. We now came to plenty of the tree palmetto, 
which the inhabitants call cabbage tree. 

"January the 1st, 1766. Hazy morning; ther- 
mometer 52. River here 9 foot deep in the channel. 
Thermometer 72° P. M. 

"2d. White frost on the boat. Thermometer 35. 
We climbed a tree, from which we had a prospect of 
an extensive marsh. 

"3d. Clear cold morning. Thermometer 26. The 
ground was frozen an inch thick on the river banks. 
This was the fatal night that destroyed the lime, citron, 
and banana trees in St. Augustine, many curious ever- 
greens up the river, and flowering plants and shrubs 
never before hurt. 

"4th. We came to a creek up which we rowed a mile 



Some Naturalist Visitors 179 

in four and six foot water, of the color of the sea, tasting 
sweetish and loathsome, warm and very clear. The 
spring-head is about thirty yards broad, and boils up 
from the bottom like a pot. Multitudes of fish resort 
to it. The alligators very numerous either on the shore 
or swimming on the surface of the water, and some on 
the bottom, so tame, or rather bold, as to allow us to 
row very near to them. 

"5th. Rainy morning. Stayed at Mount Joy. This 
mount is formed of snail and mussel shells, and is eight 
or ten foot perpendicular about one hundred and fifty 
yards long and twenty broad. 

*' loth. The wolves howled, the first time I heard 
them in Florida. We found a great nest of a wood-rat, 
built of long pieces of dry sticks, near four foot high 
and five in diameter, all laid confusedly together. On 
stirring the sticks a large rat ran out and up a high 
sapling with a young one hanging to its tail. 

" 1 2th. The river weeds and reeds stopped our battoe, 
and we returned to the hammock where we lodged last 
night. 

*' 13th. Set out homeward. 

"14th. Our hunter killed a large he-bear, supposed 
to weigh four hundred pounds. His skin, when 
stretched measured five foot and a half long and four 
foot ten inches in breadth. He yielded fifteen or six- 
teen gallons of clear oil. Two of us had never eat an 
ounce of bear's meat before, but we found it to our 
surprise very mild and sweet. We had a fat young 



i8o Highways and Byways of Florida 

buck and three turkeys fresh shot at the same time, 
and some boiled with the bear, but we chose the last 
for Its good relish. 

"15th. The morning was very warm and a little 
showery. The muskitoes were troublesome last night, 
and this morning the flies blowed our meat before ten 
o'clock; the ticks creeping, and lizards running about 
our tent. We stayed all day to barbecue our meat, which 
would soon spoil if not preserved either by fire or salt. 

" i6th. Very cold windy day; so our hunters rendered 
the bear's oil, and stretched and dried the skin. 

"17th. We came to a fine rich dry bluff, four foot 
above the water. Here we cut down three tall poles 
or cabbage trees, and cut out the top bud, the white 
tender rudiments of the great leaves. This tender part 
will be three or four inches in diameter tapering near a 
foot. This they slice into a pot and stew with water, 
then, when almost tender, pour some bear's oil into it, 
and stew it a little longer, when it eats pleasant and much 
more mild than a cabbage. I never eat half so much 
cabbage at a time, and it agreed the best with me of any 
sauce I ever eat, either alone or with meat. Our hunt- 
ers frequently eat it raw, and will live on it several 
days. The small palmetto yields a white bud no bigger 
than one's finger, which is eaten by men, bears, and 
horses, in case of great need. This situation pleased me 
so much we called it Bartram's Bluff. 

" 1 8th. This night was very warm, and the muskitoes 
troublesome, so that we smoked our tent twice. 



Some Naturalist Visitors i8i 

" 19th. Fine warm morning, birds singing, fish jump- 
ing, and turkeys gobbling. 

"25th. I found a very large rattlesnake sunning him- 
self. 

"27th. We landed on a low bluff of mussel and snail- 
shells. Here, as well as in most other places on any 
high dry bank on the river or its banches where the soil 
is good, are found fragments of old Indian pots and 
orange trees, which clearly demonstrate that the 
Florida Indians inhabited every fertile spot on St. 
Johns river, lakes, and branches. We encamped 
on a bed of long tree-moss to preserve us from the 
low damp ground, which is very unpleasant and 
dangerous. 

''February the 12th. We arrived at Mr. Davis's near 
night, and next morning set out for St. Augustine." 

About two-thirds of a century later Audubon spent 
several months in Florida. He was the chief American 
ornithologist of his generation, and one of the most 
winsome, interesting, and picturesque characters that 
this country has produced. He was an artist and a 
backwoodsman seeking adventure and the opportunity 
to put on record in drawings and in words his love of the 
birds. When he went to Florida he was already famous, 
and he was accompanied by assistants and had the 
sanction of the United States navy to do some of his 
touring on government vessels. 

November 15, 183 1, he sailed from Charleston to 
St. Augustine, where he spent about three weeks, 



1 82 Highways and Byways of Florida 

then went down to Bulowville, fifty miles away, partly 
by boat and partly afoot. Late in December he made 
an excursion by way of a creek, eleven miles to the 
Halifax River, and south on that to Live Oak Landing 
eighty miles from St. Augustine. Eight other persons 
went with him, but six of them were negroes to row 
the boat. 

At sunrise, the morning after they reached the 
landing, Audubon with four of the colored servants 
started in search of birds. He says: "I proceeded 
along a narrow shallow bay, where the fish were 
truly abundant. Would you believe it, if I were to 
say that the fish nearly obstructed our headway.? 
So it was; the waters were filled with them, large and 
small. The birds appeared wild and few. You must 
be aware that I call birds few when I shoot less than 
one hundred per day." 

This remark might convey the impression that 
Audubon was a reckless destroyer of all bird life; but 
it must be remembered that he was not only seeking 
birds to describe and draw, but counted on defraying 
a part of his expenses by selling their skins to museums. 

When the party started on the return journey to 
Bulowville, both tide and wind were against them 
and there was a prospect of chilly weather. The day 
came to an end while they were still struggling north- 
ward. Moreover, the wind freshened and the cold 
increased. Worst of all, they presently found themselves 
fast in the mud about three hundred yards from a 



Some Naturalist Visitors 183 

marshy shore. They rolled themselves In their cloaks 
and lay down In the boat, but to sleep was Impossible. 
At last morning came. The bitter northeaster still 
blew, and every one was stiffened with cold and nearly 
exhausted. In order to get to the shore they leaped 
into the water and mud, waist deep, and spent two 
hours and a half In pushing the boat a quarter of a 
mile to a point where a few scrubby trees grew. 

On arriving at the margin of the marsh, two of the 
negroes fell In the mud as senseless as torpidity ever 
rendered an alligator. The others carried them Into 
the little grove, and started a fire around which the 
shivering party gathered. They wrapped the two 
negroes In blankets, and made some tea which they 
forced them to swallow, and so revived them. 

At length they manned the boat again, and got It 
off through the mud. Such was their joy when it 
was once more afloat that they set fire to the marsh. 
Crack, crack, crack! went the reeds with a rapid 
blaze, and they saw the marsh rabbits scampering 
from the fire by thousands as they pulled at their oars. 

When they entered the creek they found It well- 
nigh emptied of water by the gale, and for a second 
time they were obliged to wade to get to land. They 
abandoned the boat and began a long tramp on the 
shore through sand that sent their feet back six inches 
at every step. But finally they reached the landing 
of the Bulow plantation, and then their strenuous 
journey soon ended. 



184 Highways and Byways of Florida 

A few days afterward Audubon, accompanied by a 
Scotch engineer who was employed by the planters 
of the region in erecting sugar-house establishments, 
set forth inland to visit a spring of which wonderful 
tales were told. They were mounted on horses of the 
Indian breed, remarkable for their activity and strength, 
and they carried guns and provisions. No sooner had 
they left the "King's Road" than they entered a 
thicket of scrubby oaks, that was presently succeeded 
by a still denser mass of low palmettos, among the 
roots of which their nags had difficulty in maintaining 
a safe footing. At times the palmettos so covered the 
narrow Seminole trail they followed that It was no 
easy matter to keep to it, and they were unable to go 
faster than two and a half miles an hour. But by and 
by they came to pine barrens and sand, with here and 
there large tracts grown up to tall grasses. Wherever 
the land was a little below the general level it was 
covered with cypress trees whose spreading arms 
were hung with Spanish moss. The country was very 
flat as far as the eye could reach, presenting always 
the same wild scraggy aspect. Now and then they 
passed through muddy pools In which their horses 
sank to the saddle-girth. 

But as they went on they entered a more elevated 
and undulating region where there were beautiful 
lakes which became larger and more numerous the 
farther the travelers advanced. They saw many tor- 
toises basking in the sun along the lake shores, and, as 



Some Naturalist Visitors 185 

they approached, the creatures plunged into the water. 
Late in the day they arrived at a plantation seven miles 
from the St. Johns, and there they spent the night. 

The next day the planter guided them to the cele- 
brated spring, of which Audubon says, "The water 
is quite transparent, but so impregnated with sulphur 
that it emits an odor which to me is highly nauseous." 
It had a circular basin with a diameter of about sixty 
feet. A deep and broad channel called Spring Garden 
Creek conveyed the water to a neighboring lake. 

The planter took Audubon in a boat down the 
creek, and they saw ibises, coots, and cormorants on 
its surface or along its margin, and numerous alliga- 
tors swimming in the water. Overhead the fish-hawks 
were sailing, and on the broken trees they saw many 
of their nests. They crossed the little lake into which 
the creek emptied, and followed a continuation of the 
stream to Lake Woodruff. There they landed, Audubon 
says, "on a small island covered with wild orange 
trees, the luxuriance and freshness of which were not 
less pleasing to the sight than the perfume of their 
flowers was to the smell." Under the shade of the 
trees, and amidst the golden fruits that covered the 
ground, while the humming-birds fluttered through 
the foliage, the party ate their lunch. 

The naturalist further comments on the region: 
"I felt unquiet, as If I were almost on the verge of 
creation, where realities were tapering off into nothing. 
The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters 



l86 Highways and Byways of Florida 

and marshes, had a tendency to depress my spirits, 
notwithstanding some beautiful flowers, rich looking 
fruits, and a pure sky." 

In concluding the narrative of this inland excursion 
he remarks that "the planter aided by the Scotch 
engineer directed the current of the spring so as to 
turn a mill, which suffices to grind the whole of his 
sugar-cane." 

Audubon soon returned to St. Augustine, and in 
February went from there on a government schooner 
up the coast to the St. Johns River. As the vessel 
entered the river in the early morning he watched the 
numerous pelicans that had been frightened from 
their resting grounds flying on high. Farther along 
he saw myriads of cormorants covering the face of the 
waters, and countless fish-crows were arriving from 
their distant roosts. In many places the shores were 
low and swampy, to the great delight of the abounding 
herons and the grim alligators. 

On the evening of the twelth of the month the 
schooner anchored fully one hundred miles from the 
mouth of the river. The mercury stood at ninety 
degrees. "Blind mosquitoes" covered every object, 
even in the cabin. So wonderfully abundant were they 
that they more than once extinguished the candles 
while Audubon was writing his journal. Finally he 
closed it in despair, crushing between the leaves more 
than a hundred of the little wretches. Luckily these 
blind mosquitoes did not bite. 



Some Naturalist Visitors 187 

Toward noon, the next day, while the vessel was 
gliding along on its voyage, a Seminole Indian ap- 
proached in his canoe. He had spent the night fishing, 
and the morning in procuring the game of the swampy 
thickets. He dexterously threw his fish and turkeys 
on the deck of the schooner, received a recompense, 
and swiftly departed without an acknowledgment of 
any kind. 

The schooner was to remain for some time on the 
upper river, and Audubon hired two men to row him 
forty miles down to where he was opposite St. Augus- 
tine. Then, accompanied by his assistants and a 
Newfoundland dog, he started across country on foot, 
following a narrow, but well-beaten path that had 
been used by the Indians for ages. The weather was 
calm and beautiful, but they had eighteen miles to go, 
and the sun was only two hours high. Presently they 
entered a pine-barren. Now and then a rivulet oc- 
curred, from which they quenched their thirst, and the 
magnolias and flowering plants on its banks relieved 
the dull uniformity of the woods. 

The sun went down, and a breeze which sprang up 
sounded dolefully among the tall pines. Along the 
eastern horizon lay a bed of black vapor, which grad- 
ually rose and covered the heavens. The air felt hot 
and oppressive. Audubon's dog was now their guide. 
He kept a little ahead of them on the trail, and the 
white spots on his coat were the only objects they 
could discern amid the darkness. 



l88 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Large drops began to fall from the murky mass 
above, vivid flashes of lightning streamed across the 
heavens, the wind increased to a gale, and the rain 
poured down like a torrent. The water soon rose on 
the level ground so as to almost cover their feet, but 
they continued to advance, fronting the tempest. At 
length the storm passed on, and there was clear sky 
overhead spangled with stars. Not long afterward 
they descried the light of the beacon near St. Augus- 
tine. They were now on ground where the dog had 
hunted, and he led them directly to the great causeway 
that crossed the marshes at the back of the town. So 
they soon arrived at their hotel, drenched with rain, 
steaming with perspiration, and covered to the knees 
with mud. 

Audubon's next and last Florida excursion was in a 
revenue cutter down the East Coast. He visited the 
islands all the way down to Key West, and from there 
voyaged eighty miles westerly to the Tortugas. These 
islands consist of low banks of shelly sand that were 
resorted to principally by turtles and that class of men 
called wreckers. The turtles came to the banks to 
deposit their eggs in the burning sand, and clouds of 
sea-fowl arrived every spring to make their nests on 
the isles. There came also at this season men com- 
monly spoken of as eggers, who, when their cargoes 
were completed, sailed away to market their plunder. 

When the revenue cutter approached the Tortugas 
in the early hours of the night, Audubon observed the 



Some Naturalist Visitors 189 

heavily-laden turtles slowly advancing landward, with 
only their heads above the water. He could dimly see 
their broad forms as they toiled along, anxious to de- 
posit their eggs in the well-known sands, and at inter- 
vals he heard their hurried breathings. 

After spending a few days among the islands in his 
customary manner, shooting birds, drawing pictures 
of them, and skinning them, he returned to St. Au- 
gustine, and about the middle of April brought his 
Florida tour to a close by sailing for Savannah. 

Another notable naturalist who had interesting things 
to say about Florida was John Muir. At the age 
of twenty-nine, in October, 1867, he approached by 
sea Fernandlna in the extreme northeast corner of 
the state. He was eager to ramble and botanize, and 
expected to find a flowery Canaan. As the steamer 
drew near port he saw a flat, watery, reedy coast, 
with clumps of mangrove, and forests of moss-dressed 
strange trees. He landed on a rickety wharf, and a 
few steps took him to the town. After buying some 
bread at a baker's, he made for the shady woodland. 

Presently he stopped where a dry spot was formed 
by a heap of grass and broken roots, something like a 
deserted muskrat house. As he lay there eating his 
bread, gazing at and listening to the profound strange- 
ness, he was startled by a rustling sound behind him. 
He turned and saw "a tall white crane, handsome as 
a minister from spirit land." 

Muir started to cross the state by a gap hewn for the 



190 Highways and Byways of Florida 

locomotive, stepping along from tie to tie between the 
rails, or walking on the strip of sand at the sides, peer- 
ing into the mysterious forest. When a new grass, or 
a gorgeous flower belonging to tree or vine would 
catch his attention he would splash through the coffee 
brown water for specimens. Often he was tangled in 
a labyrinth of armed vines like a fly in a spider-web, 
or he sank so deep that he was compelled to turn back 
and try in another place. 

He was meeting so many strange plants that he was 
much excited; but the grandest discovery of the "great 
wild day" was a palmetto. It stood in a grassy place 
almost alone, and was "wonderfully impressive." He 
describes it as having "a plain gray shaft, round as a 
broom-handle, and a crown of varnished, channeled 
leaves"; but, whether rocking and rustling in the wind, 
or poised thoughtful and calm in the sunshine it had 
a marvelous power of expression. 

Night came while he was still in the trackless woods. 
He gave up hope of finding food or a house bed, and 
searched only for a dry spot on which to sleep. For 
hours he walked rapidly in the wet level woods, while 
all manner of night sounds greeted his ears from strange 
insects and beasts. When he came to an open place 
where pines grew, it was about ten o'clock, and he 
thought that now he would find dry ground. But even 
the sandy barren was wet, and he had to grope in the 
dark a long time, feeling the earth with his hands 
when his feet ceased to plash, before he discovered a 



Some Naturalist Visitors 191 

little hillock dry enough to sleep on. He ate a piece of 
bread that was left in his bag, drank some of the brown 
water about his hillock, and lay down. Hollow-voiced 
owls pronounced their gloomy speeches with profound 
emphasis, but did not prevent sleep coming to heal 
his weariness. 

In the morning, cold and wet with dew, he set out 
breakfastless, watching for a house, and at the same 
time observing the grand assemblies of novel plants. 
About mid-forenoon he came to a shanty where a party 
of loggers were getting out long pines for ship spars, 
and they gave him a portion of their pork and hominy. 

A few hours later he dined with three men and three 
dogs, after being attacked viciously by the latter. The 
dogs undertook to undress him with their teeth, and 
nearly dragged him down backward, but he escaped 
unbltten. 

As he went on he saw a place on the margin of a 
stagnant pool where an alligator had been rolling and 
sunning himself. He remarks that many good people 
believe alligators were created by the devil, thus ac- 
counting for their all-consuming appetite and ugliness; 
and he mentions hearing of one big fellow that was 
caught young and was partially civilized and made to 
work in harness. 

He found the Florida streams without banks or defi- 
nite channels, and their waters as black as ink in deep 
places. It was often difficult to ascertain which way 
they were flowing or creeping, so slowly and so widely 



192 Highways and Byways of Florida 

did they circulate through the woodland swamps and 
tree-tangles. He says that "most streams appear to 
travel through a country with thoughts and plans for 
something beyond, but those of Florida do not seem to 
be traveling at all." 

The country was so level that he fancied little grad- 
ing was required for roads, but much bridging of water- 
ways and much boring of tunnels through forests. 

One night, after a long day's tramp, he noticed a light 
off in the pine woods. He was very thristy, and he went 
toward the light in the hope of obtaining water. When he 
drew near, he found a big glowing log fire illuminating 
the overleaning bushes and trees and making still darker 
the surrounding woods. By the fire sat a negro and 
his wife at supper, and close at hand lay a naked little 
boy. Muir was given water in a gourd, and after drink- 
ing resumed his walk thinking, " Surely I am now coming 
to the tropics, where the inhabitants wear nothing but 
their own skins." 

A little farther on he came to Gainesville which 
seemed to him an oasis in the desert compared with 
other villages. 

He was much impressed by the magnolias, and speaks 
of "the easy dignified simplicity of this noble tree, its 
plain leaf endowed with superb richness of color and 
form, its open branches festooned with graceful vines 
and moss, its showy crimson fruit, and its magnifi- 
cent fragrant white flowers." In his opinion it is the 
most lovable of Florida trees. 




A Florida waterside 



Some Naturalist Visitors 193 

The night of the 20th he arrived at the house of a 
hospitable ex-Confederate officer, and there he stayed 
several days. The most notable incident of his stay 
was a visit to a palmetto hammock seven miles long 
and three broad. To get to it he went across the farm 
fields and followed a wavering path through a jungle of 
cat-briers and on across a broad swamp where the trail 
made a good many abrupt turns to avoid deep water, 
fallen trees, or impenetrable thickets. But at last he 
suddenly emerged from the leafy darkness of the swamp 
forest, and came forth on a level area of grasses and 
sedges, well starred with flowers, and bounded by a 
wall of vine-laden trees. He walked enchanted among 
the palmettos. There was grandeur and nobility in 
their character. 

After some hours he started on the return journey, 
but sought in vain for the trail. At length he took a 
compass bearing and pushed on through the swamp in 
a direct line through the jungle tanglement with much 
wading of opaque pools and lagoons. But he knew that 
he could not penetrate the army of cat-briers, and that 
he must find the narrow slit of a lane before dark or 
spend the night with mosquitoes and alligators. Finally 
he arrived at the grand cat-brier encampment and 
scrambled back and forth unavaillngly In search of an 
opening. There was not even a strip of dry ground on 
which to rest. He began to think of building some 
sort of a scaffold In a tree on which he might pass the 
night, but concluded to endeavor once more to discover 



194 Highways and Byways of Florida 

the narrow track. So he made a long exploration to 
the left down the brier line, and after scrambling a mile 
or more gained the blessed trail and escaped to dry land. 
He reached his host's at sundown. 

Muir arrived at Cedar Keys on the 23d, and decided 
he wanted to go from there by boat to Cuba. By in- 
quiring in a little store which had a considerable trade 
in quinine and in alligator and rattlesnake skins, he 
learned that a vessel would leave in about two weeks. 
Then he interviewed a sawmill owner and agreed to 
work for him until he sailed. But the next day he began 
to be weighed down by a leaden numbness which he« 
tried to shake off for three days by bathing in the Gulf/ 
by dragging himself about among the palmettos, plants, 
and strange shells of the shore, and by doing a little 
mill work. On the third day he could take no nourish- 
ment, but craved acid. Cedar Keys was only a mile 
or two distant from the mill, and he managed to walk 
thither to buy lemons. The malaria grew worse In- 
stead of better, and the kind-hearted mill-owner took 
him to his own house, and gave him the best of care 
while he lay sick for more than two months. 

As soon as he was able to get out of bed he crept to 
the edge of a wood, and sat day after day beneath the 
ample arms of some great moss-draped live-oaks, listen- 
ing to the winds and the birds. Later he gained strength 
enough to sail in a little skiff from one key to another. 
Close by his loitering-place under the oaks was an ex- 
tensive shallow which the tide exposed daily. This was 



Some Naturalist Visitors 195 

the feeding-ground of thousands of waders of all sizes, 
plumage, and language. 

In time of high tide some of them went In large flocks 
to reedy margins about the islands and waded and stood 
about quarreling or making sport, occasionally finding 
a stray mouthful to eat. Some perched on the man- 
groves of the shore, now and then plunging into the 
water after a fish. Some went long journeys up creeks 
and inlets. A few lonely old herons of solemn look re- 
tired to favorite oaks. Those islets which had sedgy 
margins furnished a favorite retreat for the pelicans that 
frequently whitened the shore like a rim of foam. 

Mulr found the average temperature during the day 
in December, was sixty-five degrees in the shade, but 
one day a little damp snow fell. His Florida stay came 
to an end early in January, when he left Cedar Keys on 
a schooner bound for Cuba. 

Another famous naturalist who has sojourned in 
Florida is John Burroughs. He has commented with 
regret that so much of the pine forest should be "hag- 
gled, burned and wasted," by lumbering and turpentine 
operations and by the country dwellers' annual fires 
to make pasturage for their roving cattle. He has ex- 
pressed surprise, too, at the St. Johns River cows in 
the stream eating water hyacinth, or reaching up to 
browse the Spanish moss drooping from the trees. This 
made him wonder whether with the passing of geologic 
ages they would develop into aquatic animals or tree 
climbing animals. 



XII 

THE WEATHER AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS 



F 



^LORIDA is called the Everglade State, and also 
the Peninsula State. It is the largest com- 
monwealth east of the Mississippi with the 
exception of Georgia, which exceeds it in size to a very 
slight degree. Its length from north to south is about 
four hundred and fifty miles and its northern portion 
extends nearly four hundred miles east and west. No 
other state can rival its coast line of 1 146 miles. Much 
the larger part of the coast is washed by the Gulf of 
Mexico. Except in the beautiful Tallahassee region 
the land is level or only gently rolling, and the pic- 
turesqueness of a hill country is lacking. Louisiana 
is the only state which has a lower average elevation. 
The highest point is Mount Pleasant in the extreme 
northern part near the southwest corner of Georgia. 
This "mountain" attains an altitude of three hundred 
and one feet. 

"From what I have observed, I should think Florida 
was nine-tenths water, and the other tenth swamp," 
one tourist has said. This rather accurately describes 
some portions of it, and lakes and watercourses abound 
nearly everywhere. The rivers, creeks, and canals, 
and the myriad lakes and lagoons are so connected 

196 



Some Characteristics 197 

that a canoe or light draft launch can traverse them 
in any direction throughout the length and breadth 
of the peninsula. Nor can you follow the waterways 
far without encountering some kind of wild creature 
interesting for its own sake, and perhaps legitimate 
prey for rod or gun. 

Accurate knowledge of Florida as a whole has been 
lacking until comparatively recently. A map of the 
world published in Italy not long after the time of Co- 
lumbus shows Florida as a large island in a vast ocean 
that extended as far as Japan. A French map issued in 
1760 represents it dotted with mountain peaks almost 
to the southern extremity. Its area was formerly 
much greater than now. The western boundary was the 
Mississippi River and included the southern half of 
what are now the states of Alabama and Mississippi. 
It was divided into East and West Florida with the 
Appalachlcola River for the boundary line between. 
St. Augustine was the seat of government in the eastern 
section, and Pensacola in the western. 

Spain had possessed Florida for about two centuries 
when the province was ceded to Great Britain, but 
it was then almost as much a wilderness as It had been 
originally. There were only a few thousand inhabitants 
in the limits of the present state, and nearly all of 
these were in St. Augustine and Pensacola. A large 
percentage of them were military and civil govern- 
ment dependants who were content to live safely in 
the garrisoned ports drawing their salaries for petty 



198 Highways and Byways of Florida 

official positions. Under English rule, which lasted 
not quite twenty years, Florida prospered, and settlers 
increased rapidly. Yet its condition long continued 
to be that of a frontier region. By far the greater part 
of its development has taken place since the Civil War. 
The old towns have grown, a great number of new 
towns have come into being, and all the time the 
jungle has receded. But a vast deal of unimproved 
land still awaits the labor of the pioneer. Only two 
per cent of the Florida land is cultivated, and the 
hunting is likely to be good for some time. 

One of the most valuable industries of the state is 
the manufacture of cigars, chiefly at Key West and 
Tampa. Most of the tobacco used is imported from 
Cuba. The lumber industry is also very important. 
There seems to be no end to the oysters, the fish, the 
sea-birds, and the turtles in the waters along the pen- 
insula shores. Stories are told of such hosts of fish 
in the olden times that vessels were stopped by them. 
Fruit is the principal Florida crop. The realization 
of the peninsula's adaptability to the culture of oranges 
about 1875 was the beginning of the state's modern 
agricultural development. But the unusual severity 
of the winters of 1887, 1894, and 1899 destroyed three- 
fourths of the orange trees and turned attention to 
other crops and to stock-raising. Orange culture has 
recovered much of its ascendency, but is carried on 
farther south than before. Not all the yearly output 
of gold in Nevada and Arizona would equal the wealth 



Some Characteristics 199 

that goes to Florida for her fruits and vegetables. 
Enough oranges and grapefruit are produced by her 
groves each winter to pay back the five million dollars 
that the United States gave Spain for Florida in 1821. 

Florida is the most accessible of our nation's play- 
grounds to the mass of the people, and fifty thousand 
persons visit it each year. Here, beyond the reach 
of snow and ice, they hunt, fish, or loaf, or they speed 
automobiles over ocean beaches as hard and smooth 
as a floor. They can play golf and tennis at the fash- 
ionable resorts, or embark in canoes to explore the 
depths of the wilderness, or adventure in a launch 
among the coral keys. There is plenty of occupation 
and amusement for all tastes and ages, and for those 
of slender means as well as for those of wealth. 

Statistics are said to prove that Florida cruising is 
safer than staying at home. Taking cold seems to be 
impossible, although the voyagers do not hesitate to 
go overboard without the least hesitation to push the 
boat off a bar, help fish with nets, or dive for clams. 
The story is told of a young woman member of a cruis- 
ing party, who was remonstrated with for her over in- 
dulgence in bathing. This was one evening as she was 
enjoying the surf after having been in the water con- 
tinuously since the midday meal. She responded, 
"My doctor told me it would not harm me to bathe 
four hours after eating, and I'm doing it." 

Automobiles from all the states in the Union fre- 
quent Florida in the cooler months. The highways 



200 Highways and Byways of Florida 

have been greatly improved In recent years, and in 
many sections the motoring conditions are ideal. 
There is a good road all the way from Jacksonville 
to Pensacola, and from the former place to Tampa, 
and the entire distance down the east coast to beyond 
Miami. 

The country roads are usually sandy. A woman 
who had been a long-time resident of the state once 
made a comment which may be helpfully suggestive 
to pedestrians. "I found it pretty hard walking in the 
sand at first," she said, "but I learned after a while 
that the best way is to set the heel down as hard as you 
can. Then the sand doesn't give under you so much, 
and you get along more comfortably." 

An old Florida hotel-keeper, originally from rural 
New England, is credited with this burst of confidence: 
"Yes, we've got a climate here, and that's about all 
we have got — climate and sand." Most people would 
not entirely agree with him, though there is no doubt- 
ing the sand. 

Railway travel is unavoidably dusty in fair weather, 
and the dust has a penetrating quality which renders 
its perfect exclusion from the cars impossible. The 
effect on some tourists Is to make them very pessimistic 
about everything. To quote one such person: "The 
ride through Florida is tedious. The miles of palmettos, 
with leaves glittering like racks of bared cutlasses In 
the sunshine, the miles of dark swamp, the miles of 
live oaks strung with their sad tattered curtains of 



Some Characteristics 201 

Spanish moss, the miles of sandy waste, orange groves, 
of pines with feathery tops, the sifting of fine dust, 
which covers everything inside the car as with a coat 
of flour — these make you wish that you were North 
again." 

Jacksonville is only thirty hours from New York 
by fast trains, or three days by steamers. Twelve 
hours more by rail takes one to the southern tip of the 
state. Thus, within two days' time, one may change 
his winter environment from arctic to tropic; from a 
zero mercury to one sixty or eighty degrees above; from 
ice and snow to gentle skies, unchilled waters, ever- 
blooming flowers, and singing birds — and all this 
without leaving the mainland of the United States. 

As soon as the weather begins to be wintry and dis- 
agreeable in the North it begins to be a happy medium 
In Florida, neither too cool nor too warm. The leading 
hotels generally open early in January and close four 
months later. This is the period when traveling 
facilities are at their best. 

The Florida climate is remarkably equable. You 
do not freeze to death In winter, nor are your energies 
sapped by a sizzling sun in summer. It is true that 
the summer days are often hot, but invariably at sun- 
down there is a breeze which makes sleeping a comfort. 
The equalizing force which makes both the summer 
heat and the winter cold less violent Is furnished by 
the Gulf Stream which flows out Into the Atlantic 
between Cuba and Florida. The Gulf Stream Is more 



202 Highways and Byways of Florida 

rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its 
volume is fully a thousand times as great. The water 
is bluer than that of the surrounding sea, and the line 
of demarkation in its earlier course is very distinct. 
On either side and under its warm current is the cold 
water of the rest of the sea. 

The rainy season is in summer. It does not consist 
of a steady downpour, but of afternoon thunder showers 
which come up in the heat of the day. The normal rainy 
season lasts about four months, but may continue much 
longer. In winter clear days are the rule, but the 
weather is variable, and sometimes there are rainy 
winters and comparatively dry summers. 

There are those who claim that the Florida summer 
is more genial than that torrid season at the North, 
that the winds are spiced with the resin of the woods, 
and that it is characterized by a shining equableness 
and a general blueness and balminess. Really it is 
often blisteringly and blazingly hot, and smites the 
toiler with irresistible languor. You seem about to 
ignite, and only by means of copious drafts of water 
and abundant perspiration is the conflagration pre- 
vented. However, a person gets somewhat acclimated 
in time, and learns to accept the heat with a degree 
of equanimity so that it no longer seems an achievement 
simply to exist. 

I have mentioned the thunderstorms as a feature of 
the summer. After a sweltering windless morning, clouds 
appear in the blue, lifting higher and higher their beet- 



Some Characteristics 203 

ling forms like vast snow-clad mountains tops. It is a 
stirring sight — the splendid energies of the air, the 
sweeping of the shadows, and the dramatic bursts of 
lightning. The ground trembles with the thunder and 
soon the world is blotted out by the driving rain. When 
the storm passes on, the tree-toads awake and begin 
to rasp in every tree, and the frogs in every pool. As 
the summer progresses the rains increase in frequency. 
The weather falls into a lamentable aqueous intemper- 
ance, the air becomes a habitat of vapors. There are 
looming clouds with sluggish raindrift beneath much of 
the time. The soil gradually fills and exudes water like 
a soaked sponge, every hollow is transformed into a pool 
or a lake. Wherever you go you must wade. When 
the sun comes out it blazes on a waste of wetness, and 
fills the air with steam. The stranger feels much in- 
clined to abandon the country for a while to tlie ele- 
ments and the frogs. 

Florida weather has its flaws. Nevertheless, one can 
live out of doors during almost every day in the year. 
The cool breezes from the Atlantic or the Gulf are a 
feature In summer, and sunny inviting days predomin- 
ate in winter. But persons who come to Florida with 
the expectation of spending their midwinter in white 
linen lying on beds of roses under blossoming trees and 
palms, should change this delusion for the far finer and 
truer notion of a temperature just cool enough to save 
a man from degenerating into a luxurious vegetable of 
laziness, and just warm enough to be nerve-quieting and 



204 Highways and Byways of Florida 

tranquilizing. Even if it chances that you have to en- 
dure a three days' chilly drizzling rainstorm, you can 
take comfort in thinking that the North is having a 
driving snowstorm. When Florida has a brisk cold spell 
the North has a bitter freeze. 

Florida has the lowest annual death rate of any state 
in the Union. Many persons are benfited by spending 
the winter there, and would be still more benefited if 
they made it their permanent abode. Such are those 
who suffer constitutionally from cold, who are bright 
and well only in hot weather, whom the Northern 
winter chills and benumbs, till, in the spring they are 
in the condition of a frost-bitten hot-house plant. On 
the contrary, persons who are debilitated and wretched 
during hot weather, and whom cool weather braces and 
gives vigor have no call to Florida. 

Improvement in health depends on taking advantage 
of what Florida has to offer, which Is life in the open 
air with unlimited opportunities for activity. To keep 
indoors taking no regular exercise, and with the mind 
and body unemployed offers little chance to gain. 

The climate cannot be too highly praised for children. 
The winter is one long out-door play-spell for them, 
and in general they are wholly free from coughs, colds, 
and other ailments. They can run about, row in boats, 
go fishing, and seek flowers in the woods with the 
greatest possible pleasure and the least possible discom- 
fort. 

When you are planning a visit to the peninsula, re- 



Some Characteristics 205 

member that Florida women buy furs for the winter 
and wear them too. It is not a land of perpetual 
warmth. All the northern half of the state is more or 
less subject to frosty nights, cold winds, and chilling 
rains from the middle of December to the middle of 
February. The likelihood of frost decreases as you go 
south, but every part of the mainland gets an occasional 
touch. Not until you are well down toward Key West 
do you reach the frost's limits. 

The author of a book of travel published in 1839 was 
detained for ten winter days at St. Augustine because 
the packet schooner which ran regularly to Charleston 
could not get out of the harbor on account of northeast 
winds. He says: "Nothing can be worse than to find 
oneself Imprisoned in this little village with a cold 
piercing wind drifting the sand along the streets and 
into his eyes, with sometimes a chance at a fire morning 
and evening, and sometimes a chance to wrap up in a 
cloak and shiver without any, and many times too cold 
to keep warm by walking in the sunshine. No getting 
away. Blow, blow, blow! Northeast winds are sover- 
eigns here, keeping everything at a standstill except the 
tavern-bill, which runs against all winds and weather. 
Here are forty passengers detained by the persevering 
obstinacy of the tyrant wind, while Its music roars along 
the shore to regale us by night as well as by day, and 
keep us in constant recollection of the cause of detention. 

"Oh for a steamboat! that happiest Invention of man, 
that goes in spite of wind and tide. Talk of danger! 



2o6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Why, rather than be detained in this manner, I would 
take passage on board a balloon or a thunder-cloud. 
Anything to get along." 

A recent visitor says of the northeast wind, "This 
Is the wind that sets everybody to swearing at his coffee 
of a morning, to calling for his hotel bill, and to howling 
at humanity in general." But he adds that generally 
the temperature is charming and that the prevailing 
winds are so "sweet and saintly" that they are more 
soothing than a calm. 

Another St. Augustine weather story is of a Missouri 
man. As he sat wrapped to the eyes In a big overcoat 
on a bench facing the morning sun, when the ther- 
mometer had dropped several degrees below the freez- 
ing point, he uttered this plaint: "My folks told me 
to leave my overcoat at home, but I wouldn't do it. 
There's no heat In the house where I'm boarding. So 
I had to come out here and sit in the sunshine; and durn 
me if I'm warm now! Next time I take an excursion 
in winter I'll go north. I know a stove up in Chicago 
that I'll bet Is red hot this minute, and I wish I was 
sitting side of It." 

A really hard frost makes black wreckage of all the 
tender herbage tliat before flourished in green luxuri- 
ance and put forth sweet-scented flowers. The vivid- 
colored foliage plants in the town gardens and climbing 
vines and many tall picturesque shrubs have no life 
left above ground. Banana plants also are killed down 
to the roots, and the fruit ruined. Thriving fields of 



Some Characteristics 207 

sugar cane ready for the knife are turned to a straw 
brown, and the oranges and grapefruit become solid 
lumps of ice. The first such freeze on record occurred 
on the night of January 2, 1766, when the mercury reg- 
istered twenty degrees above zero, and the ground was 
frozen an inch deep. In 1740 there was a snowstorm at 
St. Augustine, and again in 1835, but they did no dam- 
age. 

At the beginning of 1835, orange trees were the glory 
of the place. It was one immense orange orchard, and 
the town buildings were embosomed in the rich deep 
green foliage. When the trees were In full bloom the 
fragrance so filled the atmosphere as to attract the 
notice of passers on the sea. The town appeared like a 
rustic village with its white houses peeping from amid 
the boughs laden with yellow fruit. In the picking 
season the harbor was enlivened with a fieet of vessels, 
buyers from which thronged the streets bargaining for 
the oranges and arranging to send cargoes of them to 
the Northern cities. But on a night in February the 
mercury fell to seven degrees, a point which has never 
been touched since. The cold destroyed all the orange 
trees, some of which rivalled in stature the sturdy forest 
oaks. At one stroke was wiped out the labor of years, 
and for many families this meant the loss of their entire 
resources of income. They descended from affluence to 
poverty and distress. 

The "Big Freeze" of 1888 wreaked havoc again, and 
there have been other destructive frosts since. But 



2o8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

after each the tropical trees have been brought Into 
bearing agin, and latterly great quantities of the sum- 
mer fruits of the temperate zone are being raised so 
that it is possible to obtain native fruits continuously 
from one year's end to the other. 

A cold spell in Florida is very irritating to the tour- 
ists, and a frost, even though the mercury is barely 
down to the freezing point, is outrageous. "If this is 
your Florida winter, deliver me ! " they exclaim. At that 
very time, if they choose, they can walk out into the 
woods and gather quite a nosegay of flowers, and they 
can eat radishes, lettuce, and peas grown in the open 
air. However, it must be granted that the term " Sunny 
South" does not fit very literally in January. Visitors 
are apt to arrive with their heads full of romantic no- 
tions of what they will find. They expect the banks of 
the streams to be covered with orange groves which 
blossom all through the year and are continuously 
loaded with golden fruit; and they expect pineapples 
and bananas to grow wild, and the flowers to every- 
where brighten the ground and hang in festoons from 
tree to tree. What the casual observer actually does 
find. Instead of the tropical exuberance at which he 
thought he would be staring. Is a monotonous sandy 
level with patches of rough coarse grass, and tall scat- 
tered pine trees, whose tops are so far In the air that 
they seem to cast no shade, and a little scrubby under- 
brush; or, if there are deciduous trees in the woodland, 
their leafage continues to hang on the twigs in ragged 




-/ i)l. Pftfnburg roadway 



Some Characteristics 209 

patches until pushed off hy the swelHng buds of spring, 
and imparts a peculiar desolate untidness to the wood- 
land. One undoubted drawback is the difficulty of in- 
ducing the sandy soil to nourish grass. The ground has 
a persistent tendency to present the appearance of a 
place where hens have been scratching. The coarse 
native grasses that are able to withstand the summer 
heat do not make a satisfactory turf, and to have a nice 
lawn Is a great undertaking. 

The tourists are likely to think that Florida does 
not fairly merit being called a land of flowers, but 
they should explore the boggy glades of the woods, 
which is where the flowers grow. Even in midwinter 
the woods are a sort of treasure trove. There are 
palmetto leaves that can be pressed and dried and 
made Into fans, there Is the long wire grass which can 
be fashioned Into mats, baskets, and various little 
fancy articles, and there are the flowers of which a 
reasonable nosegay can be secured on any day the 
winter through, and usually there Is an abundance of 
bright delicate ferns untouched by the frosts. One 
woodland flower that is profusely abundant Is the 
yellow jasmine. It rambles everywhere, full of vigor, 
wild grace, and violet-scented fragrance. Sometimes 
its yellow bells twinkle from the prickly foliage of the 
holly where it has taken full possession, transforming 
the solemn evergreen into a blossoming garland. Or 
it may establish Itself fully fifty feet up In a water 
oak where it mingles its long festoons with the swaying 



2IO Highways and Byways of Florida 

streamers of the gray moss. Again you find it creeping 
over the ground in a thick mat with its golden buds 
and open bells peeping up from the huckleberry bushes 
and sedge grass. Sometimes it clambers all over a 
fallen tree weaving itself about the gaunt upreaching 
branches and throwing off long sprays and streamers 
that flutter out charmingly against the blue of the sky. 

The sparkleberry, a tall shrub with vivid green foli- 
age that hangs full of clusters of small white blossoms, 
comes into its glory as that of the jasmine is passing 
away. Prickly pear grows in great clumps adorned 
with bright yellow blossoms. Here and there in the 
wire grass are patches of blue and white violets. The 
former are large and long stemmed. The latter are 
very fragrant, and they whiten the ground in some 
places. Along the watersides may be found clumps 
of pale pink azalias that fill the air with their honeyed 
sweetness. Here too grow the blue iris and the white 
lilies, and you may find a pool yellow with bladderwort. 
Often the dells are lighted up by the white showy 
blossoms of the dogwood, or are brightened by a red- 
bud which is like a bush of pink flame. As the season 
advances, blue wistaria climbs from branch to branch, 
and there are the coral-honeysuckle, the trumpet- 
creeper, and a multitude of other flowers. 

The winter aspect of the wild lands may be some- 
what somber, but spring is as much a pomp and glory 
here as in the North. Nothing could exceed the out- 
burst of vividness and vigor when the sun returns to 



Some Characteristics 211 

make its power felt. In the North and West blizzards 
may rage and railroads be blocked by snowdrifts, 
while throughout Florida the coming of summer is 
heralded by the singing of birds, the maturing of 
fruits and vegetables, and the air is sweet with the 
odor of orange blossoms. 



XIII 

PINES, PALMETTOS, AND OTHER TREES 

IN many parts of Florida are interminable stretches 
of long-leaved pine forests. The rough-barked 
tapering trunks rise straight as arrows, and 
lift their plumed tops sixty to a hundred feet in the 
air. Rarely is there a limb in the first two thirds 
of the height. The needles are from twelve to eight- 
een inches long, and when the wind blows through 
the foliage it makes music worth listening to. The 
carpet of fallen needles underfoot is appropriately 
called pine straw. The woodland is characterized by 
a singular silence and a bewildering sameness. So 
scattering do the trees stand that you can look between 
their straight trunks for seemingly endless miles before 
they draw together In the gray distance and shut off the 
view. They cast little shade, and down below is calm 
sunshine which is very grateful in winter. Even when 
there Is a brisk wind, the depth of the pine woods is 
serene and still. 

One of these woods' peculiarities is the apparent 
difficulty of getting into them. As you advance they 
recede. You seem always to be at the beginning of a 
wood. The near trees are far apart, and though those 




Cutting a gutter for turpentine 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 213 

at a distance seem to stand thicker, you find them 
scattered just the same, as you go on. Such woods do 
not afi"ord much stimulus to the Imagination. Beyond 
and behind and on either side they present no variation. 
Yet after all they have a certain open sunny park-like 
charm. One writer In recording his Impressions has 
sighed for a hill, and adds, "An Impossible country to 
live in, but most pleasant for a half-day winter stroll." 

The monotony of the "flat woods," as those low-lying 
dry level pine lands are called, and the utter absence 
of landmarks make it unsafe for the stranger to wander 
from the beaten track. You easily get lost, and then 
It Is hard to find yourself and to avoid spending your 
days In endless circuit. A compass Is almost Indis- 
penslble if you have a fancy for rambling in the " piney " 
woods, for when the weather Is cloudy there is nothing 
to steer by, and the watercourses with their tortuous 
windings are very confusing. It is amazing what 
dreary miles there are of these pine barrens — arid 
level wastes with an undergrowth of palmetto scrub, 
and here and there patches of coarse grass or sedge, 
and stretches of shallow bog pools. 

The roads are often under water In places, and are 
deep sand most of the rest of the way. Loads of wood 
drawn over them to the towns are ridiculously small 
— more like wheelbarrow loads than wagon loads; and 
yet the driver will claim his load is pretty heavy to drag 
seven or eight miles in such going. It probably does 
not sell for over a dollar. 



214 Highways and Byways of Florida 

The longleaf pine makes the finest timber of any of 
the Southern pines, and grows to a greater height. 
It attains a diameter of sixteen inches breast-high, 
and a height of one hundred feet in somewhat more 
than a century. As a structural timber in the erection 
of bridges and factories it is unsurpassed, and it is 
excellent for spars and masts. Its hardness and wearing 
qualities cause it to be employed to a large extent for 
flooring. 

The turpentine men are buying or leasing all the 
pines possible, and Florida is now the center of tur- 
pentine production in the United States. The old 
crude method was to "box" the tree near the ground. 
A deep downward-slanting cavity was chopped in the 
trunk, and in this the sap collected. Above this 
cavity was cut a wide scarf that went just beneath the 
bark into the sapwood, and the gash was so shaped 
that it conducted the sap to the box. The pitch 
sweats from the wood in curdy white cream that flows 
imperceptibly downward. Heat and cold affect the flow 
of the pine sap to a marked degree. Very little pitch 
is collected in winter, and the flow is most copious in late 
spring and early summer. Stalwart negroes go about 
dipping the accumulated pitch Into buckets and filling 
casks on a creaking wagon that is drawn by mules. 
Often you hear them in the distance singing some old 
racial folk-song that has neither beginning nor end, 
but which, in its strange cadences, chimes in with the 
music of the wind in the tree-tops. 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 215 

Boxing the trees for turpentine is rapidly being 
abandoned. Instead of the big cavity cut for the sap 
to dribble into, flowerpot-like receptacles are hung 
on the trunks. This results in a cleaner product and 
longer-lived trees; and when fire sweeps through the 
barrens the blaze is far less apt to get at the heart of 
the trees and destroy them. 

The mule teams convey the casks of pitch to the 
still. Scores of barrels of pitch from thousands of 
trees are required for one run. When boxed trees were 
the rule the turpentine was a dark, viscid fluid which 
soon hardened in cooling into a brittle mass known as 
rosin. But by modern methods the fluid is pellucid 
and amber colored and hardens into the "water white" 
rosin of the trade. Twelve grades are commonly listed, 
ending with the old-fashioned opaque dark red rosin. 
More than three-fourths of a million casks of turpen- 
tine have been shipped from Southern ports to the 
markets of the world in a single year. 

The time seems not far distant when the Florida 
turpentine camps will be things of the past, and the 
smoke of the last still will have vanished. But there 
are persons who declare that the end of this industry 
is like the end of the world, the date for which has been 
so often set. At any rate you can find within a few 
miles of some of the state's important population 
centers turpentining carried on with as much energy as 
ever. Young trees grow where old ones have been 
exhausted of their amber resin tears and dragged 



2i6 Highways and Byways of Florida 

away to the sawmill, and in many a former plowed 
field there stands today a grove of pines that will soon 
be big enough to yield turpentine. When conditions 
are favorable, fifteen years suffice for a tree to attain 
a size that makes it profitable for such use. Only the 
mature trees used to be tapped, but now those no 
more than four or five inches through are subjected to 
the process. 

By making fresh wounds higher and higher up, 
the sap is induced to keep on flowing. Eventually 
the bark will be cut ofl" up to a height of five or six feet 
in a space from eight to twelve inches wide, if the size 
of the trunk permits. The same may be done on two 
or three sides of a large tree. A half or more of the 
base is sometimes cut away, and the tree becomes so 
weakened that it is likely to blow down in a gale. 
After a tree has been bled for several years it is aban- 
doned. If left undisturbed, the sun sears the scars 
with hardened pitch, and the tree regains to some 
degree its natural vigor. Then new wounds may be 
made through the yet untouched bark and more 
turpentine gathered. 

Usually, as soon as a grove has ceased to yield tur- 
pentine, the woodsmen cut the trees for the second 
quality lumber which the bleeding process has left be- 
hind. However, the gum comes from the sapwood only, 
and the heartwood Is as strong as unbled. 

Cattle and horses range freely in the woods all the 
twelve months of the year. Even in the winter the 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 217 

cows can be seen roaming the barrens picking up their 
Hving, and at that time are Hkely to be wild-eyed and 
hungry-looking. The people who own the cattle set 
fires every winter to burn the dry grass and weeds and 
curb the undergrowth and improve the pasturage. The 
long low lines of flame sweep through the forests, and 
the air Is full of soft blue haze that makes delicate every 
landscape and gives the distance a touch of romance 
and mystery. By day pitchy smoke drifting heaven- 
ward shows where the fire has got Into thick young 
growths of pines. By night the woodland Is weird 
with flickering light. It is necessary to plow fire lines 
eight or ten feet wide around homesteads and orchards 
In order to keep out the flames. Occasionally a tree 
that has a weak spot catches the fire and becomes a 
blazing column that presently crashes to the ground. 
Millions of young pines that are just starting are de- 
stroyed, and, worse still, all the accumulation of vegeta- 
tion which should be preserved to add humus to the 
soil is consumed. After the moving lines of fire have 
passed, the flames linger for days in pine stumps, eating 
away at the resinous wood. Some of the stumps stand 
fifty feet high, and are a foot or two in diameter. The 
bark has fallen, and the sapwood soon begins to decay, 
but the heart remains firm year after year. Farmers 
use this heartwood for fence posts, and it is fabled to 
last In the ground for a century. 

Large areas In Florida are covered with dense growths 
of the saw-palmetto, so named because of its spiny- 



21 8 Highways and Byways of Florida 

toothed leafstalks. This palmetto scrub, as it is com- 
monly called, creeps over the surface like huge cater- 
pillars. Each caterpillar bears a bunch of fan-like 
leaves, and in moist rich land it rears a high head and 
looks as if it were trying to become a tree, but it never 
does. The lustrous green leaves catch the sun-gleams, 
and their bristling clusters make a curious and tropical 
scenery. The stems and the leaves are both very stiff, 
and one's progress through the scrub is accompanied by 
the noisy wooden clatter of the resisting foliage. If 
the growth is thick and rank you will prefer not to 
force a passage, for the spinelets of the leafstems scratch 
viciously. If the land is to be cultivated, the scrub has 
to be laboriously rooted out. 

A Northern man with an ambition to be a Florida 
farmer says of the process of clearing a patch of land 
on his place: "We contracted with certain of our 
neighbors — locally called Crackers — to grub away the 
saw-palmettos. This was a taxing work for the back 
and the patience, and the Crackers were of a convivial 
turn and averse to monotonous exertion. They en- 
camped at hand in a picturesque and roystering style, 
played cards, discharged revolvers, came and went, 
and tippled about a flaring night-fire. Sometimes they 
disappeared for days, and we heard of them vaguely 
as recuperating from their labors. Now and then they 
did a little grubbing. 

"When this occurred I made a point of going out to 
encourage them with tales of Northern snow and frozen , 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 219 

streams, of great towns in which were buildings taller 
than the tallest Florida pines, interspersing my remarks 
with reflections on Northern persistence. I cannot say 
that this forwarded the grubbing, but it seemed to give 
the Crackers a great conceit of my inventive powers. 
There sprang up between us a very genial relation. 
The Crackers called me by my first name with a pleas- 
ant scriptural simplicity; they leaned on their grubbing- 
hoes and gathered matter for camp fables; and when 
they had listened for a while they perceived themselves 
to be exhausted with toil, and retired to mind the fire for 
dinner. After several weeks of campaigning In this 
manner they confessed themselves worsted, and the 
encampment broke up. 

"Then I employed a vagrant Irishman to finish the 
job. He professed a fine Hibernian 'contimpt' for the 
Cracker, assuming himself and me to be apart in a 
common superiority. He had a thick hairy forearm 
and a muscular back. He spat on his palms and plied 
the grub-hoe manfully and steadily till the ground was 
cleared." 

The scrub palmetto sprawls about on the ground and 
rears up only Its head, but the cabbage palmetto is a 
beautiful tree with a columnar trunk. The tree at first 
looks like a fountain of great green leaves bursting from 
the earth. This sphere of foliage is ten or twelve feet in 
diameter. New leaves develop with wonderful rapidity. 
They stand erect at first, but gradually arch outward 
as they expand their blades and lengthen their stems. 



220 Highways and Byways of Florida 

A full-grown leaf is often four or five feet across and is 
curiously plaited and folded. The outside lower leaves 
gradually become yellow, wither, and break off a few in- 
ches from where the stem joins the trunk. This trunk 
is as large when the tree begins to rise from the ground 
as it ever will be. As the tree grows taller the trunk 
changes little except that the rough dry leafstems fall 
off after clasping it for a number of years. They leave 
a clean barkless trunk from six to twelve inches in 
diameter of equal thickness from top to bottom. The 
trunks of the younger trees, which seem to present a 
regular criss-cross of basket-work formed by the scales 
whence the old leaves have decayed and dropped away, 
are frequently adorned with clinging ferns, wild flowers, 
and vines that hang in fantastic draperies down their 
sides making leafy blossom-decorated pillars. When 
mature, the tree raises its fan crown fifty or sixty feet 
in the air. The trunk is gradually worn away by wind 
and weather till at last it gets too frail to support the 
heavy tuft of leafage. After the wind has felled it, de- 
cay begins at the heart, and many seasons pass before 
the tough outer part softens. These hollow palmettos 
make ideal resorts for the wild creatures. 

The palmettos are not accounted of much value. 
However, the leaves are useful for thatching roofs and 
for making hats, mats, fans, baskets, and other articles; 
and the trunks are occasionally cut into lengths for fence 
posts, or are set up for telegraph poles; and they make 
specially good wharf piles, as the borers do not attack 




In the national forest — a fine lookout 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 221 

them as they do most woods. The soft enfolding leaves 
that surround the central bud somewhat resemble a 
cabbage in quality, whence comes the tree's name. 

Palmettos will bear more cold than any other member 
of the palm family, as they are found as far north as 
Cape Hatteras. But you do not see them at their best till 
you get down to Palatka. There the swamps have a real 
tropical picturesqueness, and the jungle has a touch of 
stateliness, due chiefly to the presence of the palmettos. 
They lean together in groups and lend grace to every 
landscape. Along the banks of streams their plumed 
heads reach far out over the water and make the mud- 
diest creek a place of enchantment. No other Southern 
tree has so striking a personality. 

In the regions where sand prevails, the finest trees 
and shrubbery grow on the banks of the "branches," 
as brooks are called in the South. You can look through 
the lofty open pillars of the pines and trace the course 
of a branch half a mile away by the vigorous vegetation 
that borders it. There you are likely to find magnolias, 
big and stately, with large leaves of a glossy varnished 
green that remain on the trees the year round. In 
May they are covered with great white blossoms some- 
thing like pond lilies, and with much the same odor. 
The size of the trees, their splendid foliage, and wealth 
of bloom make them seem worthy to be trees of heaven. 

Oak trees are common, especially the live oak, water 
oak, and blackjack. Prickly ash with its queerly 
knobbed and pointed branches and its graceful feathery 



222 Highways and Byways of Florida 

leaves is often a feature of the scene. The live oaks are 
evergreens that drop their leaves grudgingly and put on 
new ones in the same way. The leaf is oval, about two 
inches long and three-fourths of an inch wide, glossy 
and dark green above, and pale beneath. The trunk 
of the tree is usually much divided. Often the upper 
side of the main spreading branches is thickly planted 
with ferns, grasses, and small saw palmettos; and the 
Spanish moss grows luxuriantly on the trees whether 
they are living or dead. To most people the moss 
draperies have a mysterious beauty that is fascinating, 
but one woman tourist from New England has pro- 
tested: "I don't like that ragged moss over every- 
thing. It reminds me of untidy housekeeping." 

One singular and beautiful feature of the woods is 
the cypress. It attains a great age and immense size. 
In form the cypress is straight stemmed, with a base 
that Is often big and high and remarkably buttressed 
or ridged. Its shaft is topped by a wide-spreading 
head of giant limbs with very numerous branchlets. 
The prevailing size of mature trees above the basal 
swell is three to five feet, but some grow much larger. 
About twelve feet is the maximum. A height of one 
hundred and fifty feet is sometimes reached, though 
always the culmination in height comes long before 
the greatest diameter is attained. Few cypress trees 
are large enough for lumber at an age of less than two 
centuries, and those that are twice or thrice that age 
are very common. Old trees die backward or down- 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 223 

ward during a period of one to four centuries. The 
heart decays, and the last stage is usually a hollow 
cylinder. These hollow veterans are probably from 
one thousand to two thousand years in age. In a 
Mexico churchyard is a cypress that is declared on the 
authority of scientists to be over five thousand years 
old. It is a punishable offense to touch a knife to its 
bark or pick a leaf. 

The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth 
and white, while its feathery foliage is a dazzling 
golden-green. When it rises, as it often does, amid 
clumps of dark evergreens, such as bay, magnolia, and 
myrtle, the effect is very striking. It is one of the few 
conifers which successfully sprouts from the stump 
as well as propagates itself by seeds. It grows naturally 
only in deep rich swamp lands. In locations where 
water covers the surface for long periods the cypress 
develops peculiar knees or upright conic portions of 
the root system, which seem to serve the double pur- 
pose of organs for breathing and anchorage. Occasion- 
ally these knees reach heights of from eight to ten 
feet above low-water mark. The wood in them is 
light in weight, but peculiarly gnarled and twisted 
in structure. Except in their early stages the knees 
are apt to be hollow, and they were formerly much 
valued by the negroes for beehives. 

Although cypress grows chiefly on very unstable 
and treacherous soils, it is one of the most windfirm 
of trees. Rarely, if ever, is a living cypress overthrown 



224 Highways and Byways of Florida 

by the wind. When a severe tropical hurricane swept 
along the Savannah River in 1892, not a single cypress 
was seen to have yielded to the fury of the storm, 
whereas the pines were mowed down like grain before 
the reaper, and the sturdy live oaks were uprooted. 

Cypress is found in commercial quantities in all 
the Southern states that border on the coast or the 
Mississippi River. The variety that grows in this 
region is known among botanists as "bald" cypress 
because it sheds its leaves annually. Louisiana has 
about forty per cent of all the standing cypress, and 
Florida comes next with one-quarter. 

For many years only the timber accessible to streams 
subject to flooding was taken. The soft nature of the 
soil and the great weight of the logs made impossible 
moving the timber with oxen or mules. So cypress 
swamps, on account of their apparent inaccessibility, 
were regarded by the settler as of little value. Large 
tracts of overflow lands in Louisiana and Florida that 
were acquired by speculators for from twenty-five 
cents to one dollar an acre are now worth over one 
hundred dollars an acre for the standing cypress alone. 

Until after 1880 the wealth of cypress remained 
practically untouched. The logging is attended by 
difficulties of a kind unknown in handling any other 
commercial timber. The bulk of the cypress is now 
logged by massive steam machinery moved from place 
to place on railroads built into the deepest part of the 
swamps. The butt cuts of large cypress trees will not 



Pines, Palmettos, and Other Trees 225 

float when green, and to overcome this difficulty it is 
the general practice to girdle the trees six months to a 
year in advance of logging. This results in the sap's 
drying out of the wood so that about ninety-five per 
cent of the logs float instead of twenty per cent. Many 
lumbermen leave stumps from five to nine feet high, 
but the most efficient companies cut the trees at a 
height of two or three feet. Logs are rafted to the 
mills through lakes, bayous, and sometimes canals 
for distances from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five 
miles. 

The wood Is used in a multitude of ways, and Is 
especially valuable for liquid containers and for pur- 
poses where the resistance of decay by exposure to 
the weather or contact with the earth is Important. 
Cypress shingles were regarded as so much superior 
to any others that they were used at a very early 
period. An Instance Is cited of a roof of such shingles 
serving well two hundred and fifty years after it was 
laid. New Orleans cypress water-mains remained 
sound nearly a century, and a cypress headboard 
marking a grave In South Carolina was so well pre- 
served after one hundred and forty years that the 
letters on It were easily read. Marble and sandstone 
gravestones often decay and crumble In less time. 
Cypress coffins have been found In fair condition after 
an Interment of two centuries. The best canoe 
wood in early times In the far South was cypress. 
Dugouts were almost the only kind of canoe made 



226 Highways and Byways of Florida 

in the region. An observer writing in 1714 says that 
the cypress dugouts on the CaroUna rivers had a 
capacity of thirty barrels and were freighted with 
flour, lumber, and other commodities. These canoes 
even ventured on the open sea. Truly cypress is "the 
wood eternal." 



XIV 

BIRDS AND BEASTS 

A MONG the Florida birds whose songs have a 
/% striking individuality are the mocking birds, 
.A, -A- mourning doves, Bob Whites, and cardinal 
birds. Robins are numerous In the early winter, but 
begin to migrate north by the end of February. They 
go In flocks of thousands — sometimes so many as to 
darken the sky. 

At dusk the whip-poor-will begins to sing. As 
compared with the whip-poor-will of the North Its 
voice Is less of a plaint and more of a chuckle. Some 
people afhrm that it says, "Dick fell out of the white 
oak." Others tell you that its words are, "Dick 
married the widow." The song ceases when the dark- 
ness becomes dense, but is resumed for a time with the 
first faint signs of dawn in the eastern sky. 

If you ramble in the swamps you may chance to 
see the footprints of a wild turkey, or, less likely, may 
hear a bird gobbling, or even sec him. At night the 
wild turkeys perch In the trees. They feed mainly 
early in the forenoon and late In the afternoon, and 
spend the hot midday on high ground lurking among 
the bushes. In the spring the gobblers fight fierce 
battles for the possession of hens. 

227 



228 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Florida is the home of many long-legged wading 
birds. One of these Is the great blue heron, familiarly 
known as "the major." He Is a frequent sight in all 
parts of the state, and often several are In view at the 
same time — not together, but here and there — one on 
a sandbar, another in some shallow bay, and another 
on the submerged edge of an oyster-flat. The bird 
rarely seems to be doing anything except standing. 
There are rustic natives who declare that he is very 
good eating if killed In the full of the moon; for, as he 
feeds chiefly at night, he fares best with the moon to 
help him secure his food. It Is a queer life that the 
creature leads — fat and lean by turn twelve times a 
year! 

Caution is one of his most striking characteristics. 
If he Is patrolling a shallow on one side of an oyster 
bar and takes It into his head to try the water on the 
other side, he stretches up his neck to look in all direc- 
tions. How could he know but that some enemy was 
lying In wait? When he Is satisfied that he can make 
the change with safety he spreads his wings and flies 
over. After alighting he looks once more all about 
him. He means to run no risks. If nothing meets 
his vision to cause him apprehension, he draws In 
his neck till his head is on a level with his shoulders, 
and resumes his labors. 

You will probably see a number of the great blue 
heron's relatives in this country of abounding waters, 
where the heron family is so much at home. For 



Birds and Beasts 229 

instance, there are the green heron, the little blue, 
and that dainty creature which is called "The Lady 
of the Waters." 

Another interesting frequenter of the waters is the 
pelican, a bird which flies with vigorous grace in spite 
of its huge pouched bill. In the autumn of each year 
the pelicans of the east coast begin their mating, and 
flock to the single rookery which is their nesting-place. 
This rookery is a low sandy island with an area of 
about three acres, situated in a sheltered bay of the 
Indian River, a little south of the town of Malabar. 
Here they have all bred ever since man has had any 
knowledge of the vicinity. The young birds cannot 
bear much heat or cold, and the island is very well 
chosen for getting a moderate temperature. When the 
breeding impulse comes to the pelicans in October they 
collect in flocks of hundreds up and down the coast, 
and at length, in a single night, all arrive at the island 
and take possession. 

This island is a government bird sanctuary, and a 
warden is there to protect the pelicans during the nest- 
ing season from the depredations of mankind. Some 
fifteen hundred nests are built on the tract, and then 
begins a carnival of pelican-growing which lasts for 
months. Formerly the island was covered with man- 
grove trees, but apparently the weight of nests and 
roosting birds was too much for them, and only one 
lone tree has survived. So close together are the brood- 
ing birds that the island as seen from a distance seems 



230 Highways and Byways of Florida 

covered with driftwood. On the higher parts one great 
grass nest almost touches the next, and there is hardly 
room for neighboring birds to take flight at the same 
time without flapping each other with their seven-foot 
spread of wings. 

The pelican mother lays three pure white eggs which 
hatch in about four weeks. Ten weeks later the young 
have acquired full flight plumage. But during that 
ten weeks the parents have a busy time feeding their 
voracious young. The male and female alternate in 
seeking food and sitting on the nest, and seem to share 
equally in all the care of their fledgelings. Not until 
the chicks have grown the white down which precedes 
the real feathers are they left alone by the parents, for 
they quickly die of exposure if the weather is cool, and 
the hot sunshine is no less fatal. The old birds have to 
make several trips to the fishing grounds daily. They 
swallow the fish, and after arriving at the nest disgorge 
them into the baggy pouch beneath the bill. From this 
pouch the little pelicans help themselves. 

Except for a croak of recognition with which a sitting 
bird greets its relieving mate the adult pelican Is silent. 
Not so with the young. Pelican Island in the breeding 
season is vocal with the croaks, cries, and squawks of the 
young birds. The larger the youthful bird is, the shriller 
and louder its voice. In March most of the pelicans 
desert the island, and it is practically uninhabited for 
the next seven months. During that period the keeper 
has his vacation. 



Birds and Beasts 23 1 

One of the most singular of the Florida birds is that 
personification of ugliness, the water turkey. Why it 
has that name is not very apparent, for the only thing 
about it that bears any resemblance to the Thanks- 
giving fowl is its tail. It is also called a "darter". from 
a habit it has of suddenly thrusting forward its bill to 
seize its prey. A third name for it is the "snakebird," 
which some say is derived from its fondness for a snake 
diet, and others from its snaky neck. The neck is too 
long for the rest of it, and its legs are too short. It has 
a small head and a sharp slender bill. The bird is a 
haunter of the inland streams, lakes, and swamps, and 
is a very expert swimmer and diver. 

A naturalist visitor has said that a water turkey 
reminds him of a crow that has had its neck pulled. 
It lives on fish, though how it gets them down its pre- 
posterously thin neck is a mystery. The bird is nervous 
in its manner, and when approached has an odd way 
of poking its long pointed bill this way and that as if 
trying to make holes in the atmosphere through which 
to escape. Then, with a tremendous burst of energy, 
it whirs away on its short wings. If it is surprised on 
a limb that hangs low over the water it will dive, and 
when it comes to the surface afterward it thrusts up 
its head and neck and looks around while keeping its 
body submerged. 

The tourist does well to remember that Florida is the 
haunt of many stinging and biting Insects. "I'm tellin' 
yo' the truth," an east coast negro said to a questioner 



232 Highways and Byways of Florida 

from the North, "the muskeeters and sandflies is awful 
hyar in summer." These or other pests are found in 
certain parts of the state at all seasons. The microscopic 
redbug has colonized every bunch of grass and moss 
and dry seaweed on the peninsula, as well as every log 
and bit of dead wood. A pedestrian Is sure to become 
acquainted with it sooner or later. In size it is almost 
invisible, but it is gigantic in its power of annoyance. 
The creatures promptly transfer themselves to the loi- 
tering sightseer, and give him cause to think he is on fire. 
However, they can be effectively combated by rubbing 
the affected spots with a mixture of grease and salt. 
Leather or canvas leggings are a desirable protection 
both against the redbugs and wood-ticks that frequent 
the undergrowth, and against the spiny and thorny 
harshness of the vegetation. 

You need not be alarmed if you run afoul of a scor- 
pion, for it is no more to be dreaded than a spider. But 
if a centipede crawls over your bare skin It will leave a 
painfully Inflamed trail. When bathing In salt water, 
should you come in contact with the long streaming 
tentacles of a Portuguese man-of-war, you will fancy 
it to be a particularly vicious bunch of stinging nettles, 
or if you encounter a whipray you will probably receive 
a wound that will be acutely painful and slow to heal. 
"But what's the use of namin' all our bitin' and stingin' 
critters.'"' an elderly native has said. "I've lived hyar 
all my life an' hain't run up agin nary one of 'em, 'cep- 
tin', of cose, redbugs an' muskeeters an' scorponiums 




Cocoanut palms on Key Biscayne 



Birds and Beasts 233 

an' sich trash that don't count, only to make a feller 
scratch an' cuss." 

Some Florida visitors declare that you hear there 
more night voices gasping, gurgling, screeching, and 
choking than anywhere else in the world. One peculiar 
night voice is that of the Southern bullfrog. He ought 
to be called a pigfrog, for his love call is a mere grunt. 
He sits with his nose just out of the water grunting 
exactly like a contented young pig. 

Many persons can recall the abounding wild life of 
the Florida west coast, when alligators slept on the 
banks of every river, wading birds stalked across every 
flat, solid acres of waterfowl were to be seen on the bays 
and streams, and overhead flew great flocks of birds, 
some pure white, and others gorgeously colored. An 
Indian hunter leaves enough of the old birds to feed 
the young of a rookery, but the white man kills the last 
plume bird he can find and leaves the young ones to 
die in their nests. 

Men tourists are very apt to bring with them auto- 
matic shotguns and repeating rifles with which they 
bang at everything that flies or crawls. They have 
well-nigh exterminated certain kinds of game. Perhaps 
the deer of the southern wilderness withstands them 
better than any of the other creatures, for the labor 
of following it over boggy meadows and through 
mangrove thickets is too strenuous for the average 
hunter. 

Tourists rarely see a snake, but they hear of them. 



234 Highways and Byways of Florida 

The Florida man who cannot tell at least one snake 
story may be set down as having land to sell. 

Turtles are among the most numerous and interesting 
of edible Florida animals. In the egg-laying season 
the female turtle feels the Impulse to seek the shore 
mostly on fine calm moonlight nights. When within 
thirty or forty yards of the beach she raises her head 
above the water and attentively examines the objects 
on the land. If she observes nothing likely to disturb 
her intended operations, she emits a loud hissing sound 
which serves to frighten such of her many enemies as 
are unaccustomed to it, and they are apt to go to an- 
other place. Should she hear any noise, or perceive 
Indications of danger, she instantly sinks and goes off 
to a considerable distance, but If everything is quiet 
she advances slowly to the beach. When she reaches 
it she crawls along with head raised to the full stretch 
of her neck till she gets to a place fitting for her purpose. 
There she gazes all round, and, if satisfied that no harm 
threatens, she proceeds to dig a hole in the sand with 
her hind flippers. The sand Is alternately raised with 
each flipper until it has accumulated behind her, when 
she supports herself with her head and fore part on the 
ground, and with a spring of the flippers sends the heap 
of sand scattering to a distance of several feet. In this 
manner the hole is deepened to about eighteen Inches, 
or even to as much as twenty-four Inches sometimes, 
and the labor may not occupy over nine minutes. The 
eggs are then dropped one by one, and disposed In reg- 



Birds and Beasts 235 

ular layers to the number of one hundred and fifty or 
possibly nearly two hundred. The whole time spent in 
this operation is about twenty minutes. That done, 
she scrapes the loose sand back over the eggs, and so 
levels and smooths the surface that few persons on see- 
ing the spot could imagine anything had been done to 
it. Now she retreats to the water with all possible 
dispatch, leaving the hatching of the eggs to the heat 
of the sand. When a turtle is in the act of dropping 
her eggs, she will not move, even if a man were to seat 
himself on her back, for it seems that she is unable to 
intermit her labor. 

Those who catch turtles resort to the beach In the 
egg-laying season and walk along it at night where the 
turtles come up out of the water to deposit their eggs. 
When a man sees one he goes to it and turns it over. 
Then he walks on to seek others, and serves each in 
the same manner till he is tired. To upset one of the 
bigger turtles the catcher is obliged to get down on his 
knees, place his shoulder behind her fore-arm, gradually 
raise her by pushing vigorously, and then with a jerk 
throw her over. Sometimes it requires the united 
strength of several men to accomplish this. Few turtles, 
when once turned over, can regain their natural posi- 
tion without assistance. 

The morning after the catcher has been at his task 
he returns to get the turtles that he left on their backs. 
There they are wriggling in flabby helplessness wholly 
at his mercy. This method of capture is very old. A 



236 Highways and Byways of Florida 

visitor to the Florida region in 1682 says, in telling how 
the turtles were secured, "They are laid on their backs, 
where, hopeless of relief, as if sensible of their future 
condition, they mourn out their funerals, the tears 
flowing plentifully from their eyes accompanied with 
passionate sobs and sighs." 

Some turtlers set great nets across the entrance to 
streams. These nets have very large meshes into which 
the turtles partially enter, when, the more they attempt 
to extricate themselves, the more they get entangled. 
Harpoons are used also in securing the creatures. 

Each turtler has his "crawl," which is a square 
wooden building or pen formed of logs, the logs being set 
upright in the mud sufficiently far apart to allow the 
tide to pass freely through. In this Inclosure the turtles 
are placed and fed until they are sold. The turtle-crawl 
has much the same relation to the household of the 
Gulf Coast dweller that the chicken-coop has to inland 
homes. 

The food of the green turtle consists chiefly of marine 
plants, which they cut near the roots to procure the 
most tender and succulent parts. Their feeding-grounds 
are easily discovered because masses of these plants are 
set afloat and drift to the neighboring shores. 

Persons who search for turtles' eggs are provided with 
a light stiff" cane or gun-rod, with which they go along 
the beaches probing the sand near the tracks of the an- 
imals. On certain shores hundreds of turtles deposit 
their eggs within the space of a mile. The young, soon 



Birds and Beasts 237 

after being hatched, and when scarcely larger than a 
silver dollar, scratch their way through their sandy 
covering and immediately betake themselves to the 
water. All the turtle tribe can swim with surprising 
speed. 

Probably the alligator is the most picturesque and 
popular feature of the Florida peninsula. He enlivens 
its waters and makes his bed on the banks of the streams, 
and he has served as a target for nearly every rifle 
that has been brought into the state. The alligators' 
nests are big heaps of reeds, dried leaves, and rubbish. 
Their eggs are about the size of hens' eggs, and are white 
with a tough leathery skin. Midsummer is the laying 
time, and the heat in the sub-tropical swamp does the 
hatching. The mother, however, lingers not far away, 
and if you wish to see her you need only catch one of the 
little wriggly youngsters and pinch its tail. The squeal 
of pain can usually be depended on to bring the mother 
with a rush, though the sight of a man will send her 
back in a panic. The little ones are born on the banks 
of the pool In which the mother dwells, and this abounds 
with fish so that they have plenty to eat. Sometimes an 
alligator will get a duck or a heron by coming up from 
beneath and snapping the bird before it has time to 
rise from the water. 

Until about 1890 the alligators had not been much 
disturbed in most of their wilderness haunts. Fifteen- 
footers wore broad paths promenading from one deep 
hole to another, but they rarely make such trips now, 



238 Highways and Byways of Florida 

and you need to be stealthy of foot and quick of eye 
to see one. They stick closely to their holes, and when 
the saurian takes alarm while up sunning himself, he 
has only to make a quick plunge and he is far down 
in the mud out of sight. He is ordinarily harmless, 
and only when wounded or surprised in his lair will he 
show fight. Then he may bite you with those jagged 
rows of teeth in his big mouth, or strike you with his 
muscular tail, but this will simply be to get an opportu- 
nity to escape. He makes the water fairly boil in his 
frantic efforts. You can swim in his private pool, if 
you choose, and Instead of molesting you he will crowd 
farther down Into the depths of his mudhole. 

One of his habits Is to He almost submerged with 
only his protruding nostrils and eyes above the surface. 
If you are not familiar with alligators you would think 
these were bits of floating rubbish. His deadliest foe 
is the bulls-eye lantern. Its glare hypnotizes and holds 
him helpless. This fire-hunting for alligators is butch- 
ery. The bulls-eye is bound to the hunter's forehead, 
he crouches with his rifle in the front of a skiff which 
a companion sculls at the stern. The ray of light from 
the lantern strays over the surface of the water, and 
plays among the leafage along the shore. When it re- 
veals an alligator he is so spellbound that he lies on the 
surface motionless with his eyes shining in the glare. 
The hunter need not fire his gun until the boat Is so 
close that the powder burns the creature as the gun 
is discharged and the bullet crashes into his brain. 



Birds and Beasts 239 

Until almost the end of the last century the water 
in the Big Cypress country was filled with alligators, 
and fire-hunters often took a thousand of the reptiles 
from a single small lake. Less than a score of years 
ago the principal dealer on the west coast bought three 
or four hundred hides daily from about fifty hunters, 
and kept a schooner running to Key West with hides 
and returning with cargoes of salt, ammunition, and 
grub. The price paid for the hides varied from one dol- 
lar for those measuring seven feet or over, down to ten 
cents for such as measured less than four feet in length. 

The fire-hunter has so nearly wiped out the alligator 
inhabitants of the lakes and streams in southern Florida 
that their pursuit no longer affords him a living. The 
surviving remnant of the reptiles leads a precarious ex- 
istence in the Big Cypress and the Everglades. During 
the dry season the water of the swamps and prairies, 
recedes, leaving shallow ponds and water-holes dug by 
the alligators. An occasional hunter seeks the creatures 
in these depressions. He carries a long iron rod with 
which he jabs and prods till the alligator comes to the 
surface to be knocked on the head or captured. Some- 
times the rod has a hook on the end that is used to haul 
out a reluctant victim. Now and then a hunter lures 
forth a mother alligator by imitating from deep within 
himself the call of her young. 

The resorts of the alligator abound in poisonous 
snakes, and sometimes thirty or forty of them can be 
seen around a single alligator hole. If the hunter 



240 Highways and Byways of Florida 

wears boots he kicks the moccasin snakes out of the 
way with the contempt which famiHarity breeds, but 
if he hears the vibrant alarm of the rattlesnake he 
moves only with the greatest caution until he has 
located that king of serpents. 

There are Florida boys who will go to the haunts of 
the alligators and follow a trail to a marshy pond and 
coax a 'gator to the surface by grunting in his own 
language. If the reptile refuses to respond to this call 
the boy may wade deep in the mud and explore with 
his toes till he feels the wiggle of the creature. Then he 
worries him out of his lair, grabs him by the nose be- 
fore he can open his jaws, and drags him to solid ground. 

The alligators' teeth are used more or less to make 
into whistles, watch charms, and the like. The process 
of securing the teeth is to kill an alligator and leave the 
carcass lying for a couple of months, when it can be re- 
visited and the loosened teeth drawn from their sockets. 
But chiefly alligators are hunted for their hides. The 
Seminoles secure a great many of them, and a bare- 
legged Indian will pole his heavy dugout loaded with 
alligator hides thirty or forty miles to trade them for 
grits and bacon. 

Florida has its crocodiles as well as its alligators. 
The principal difference between them is that the for- 
mer has a sharper nose, more formidable teeth, a fiercer 
disposition, and jaws that are both hinged, whereas the 
alligator has only the lower one hinged. The Florida 
crocodile is nearly extinct. The few that are left are 



Birds and Beasts 241 

probably only to be found along a narrow strip of less 
than a dozen miles at the extreme southern end of the 
state. They are active in defending themselves when 
attacked, and yet specimens nine or ten feet long can 
be safely taken into a skiff after their jaws have been 
tied, even if the tying is done with nothing more than 
a pocket handkerchief. The crocodile becomes as gentle 
as a lamb as soon as he loses the use of those formidable 
jaws. 



XV 

TWO CHARMING CITIES 

THE cities are not in Florida, but they are so 
generally included in any Florida trip that it 
seems logical to devote a chapter to them in 
this book. I refer to Charleston and Savannah. The 
beginnings of the former place date back to 1670 when 
an English colony established itself at Albemarle Point 
on the banks of the Ashley River, three miles from the 
present city. Their settlement was shifted to the site 
of Charleston a few years later. 

The early history of Charleston Is rich In pirate 
stories. One of the pirates who preyed on the shipping 
of the port, a man named Bonnet, held a resident of 
the place on his ship and threatened to send the pris- 
oner's head to the city unless a ransom was forthcoming. 
The Charleston authorities presently succeeded in cap- 
turing Bonnet and his ship after a savage fight, but the 
pirate escaped from the city in woman's clothing. In 
1718 he was retaken, hanged, and buried along with 
forty of his band at a spot now covered by Battery 
Garden, the favorite promenade of Charlestonians. 

The most famous pirate episode of a later time oc- 
curred in the spring of 18 12, when Theodosia, daughter 

242 



Two Charming Cities 243 

of Aaron Burr and wife of the governor of South Caro- 
lina, sailed from Charleston to visit her father in New 
York. The schooner on which she was a passenger was 
never heard from until, thirty years afterward, an old 
sailor dying in a North Carolina coast village confessed 
that he had been one of a pirate crew which had cap- 
tured the vessel and compelled the passengers to walk 
the plank. 

Some one writing from Charleston in 1763 says: 
"The ladies are genteel and slender. They have fair 
complexions, without the help of art, and regular fea- 
tures. Their air is easy and natural, their eyes spark- 
ling, penetrating, and enchantingly sweet. Many sing 
well and play on the harpischord and guitar with great 
skill. In summer riding on horseback or in chaises, 
which few are without, is much practiced in the evenings 
and mornings. In the autumn, winter, and spring there 
is plenty of game for the gun or dogs. The gentlemen are 
not backward in the chase. During the season there 
is once in two weeks a dancing assembly in Charles- 
ton, where is always a brilliant appearance of lovely 
and well-dressed women. We have likewise a play- 
house, where a tolerable set of actors, called the Ameri- 
can Company of Comedians, exhibit. Madeira wine 
and punch are common drinks of the inhabitants. 
The ladies are extremely temperate and generally 
drink water. There are about eleven hundred dwellings 
in the town." 

Patches of cotton were being grown in South Caro- 



244 Highways and Byways of Florida 

lina by 1770, and the first cotton shipment from Amer- 
ica to Europe consisted of eight bags sent from Charles- 
ton to Liverpool in 1784. 

At the opening of the Revolution, Charleston was one 
of the three leading seaports of the country. In front 
of the city on SuUivans Island the Americans erected 
a strong breastwork of palmetto logs and sandbags. 
The British fleet attacked the rude fort on June 28th, 
1776, but the elastic palmetto logs proved an admirable 
defense, and a terrific ten-hour bombardment did it 
little damage. On the other hand, so effective was the 
American fire that every enemy ship except one was 
seriously crippled. In the thick of the fight the staff 
that held aloft the American flag was broken by a can- 
non ball, and the flag fell outside the fort. This flag 
was of a design that had been adopted in South Caro- 
lina a few months previous. It was blue with a white 
crescent In the upper corner next to the staff. Sergeant 
William Jasper, an illiterate youth who could not even 
read, promptly leaped down the embrasure in the face 
of the enemy's fire, caught up the fallen banner, and 
planted it on the sandbags of the bastion, and thus 
won for himself a place among the country's heroes. 

The British withdrew. They made another attempt 
with no better results In 1779, but the next year a four 
months' siege ended in the surrender of the city. 

In 1790 Charleston had fifteen thousand inhabitants, 
which was about half as many as there were in New 
York. The majority of the Charleston people, however, 




St. Michael's Church, Charleston 



Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor 



Two Charming Cities 245 

were negroes, and the majority of the present popu- 
lation of sixty-five thousand are also negroes. 

The railroad from Charleston to the head of navi- 
gation on the Savannah River was, at the time of its 
completion, the longest in existence. One of its early 
rules was that twenty-five passengers to a car should 
be the limit. A train with one passenger car was not 
to travel faster than fifteen miles an hour. If it had 
two passenger cars the limit was twelve miles, and if 
it had three its speed was cut to ten miles. 

Osceola, the celebrated Seminole chief, was impris- 
oned in Fort Moultrie on Sullivans Island. He was 
accompanied by his wife, Morning Dew, and their 
child. There he died at the age of thirty-four in Jan- 
uary, 1838, of heartbreak, after being in the fort only a 
few weeks. He was a sad prisoner who often sighed, 
and never was known to laugh during his confinement. 
He refused medical attention because he thought it was 
the intention to poison him. When he felt the approach 
of death he made known that he wished for his war 
garments. These were brought, and he rose from the 
bed and attired himself in the full Insignia of a chief. 
He lay down exhausted, and died within a half hour. 
He was burled just outside the principal gateway to 
the fort and a monument was erected to his memory. 

When the Civil War was imminent South Carolina 
was the first state to secede. Its legislature passed the 
ordinance of secession by unanimous vote in Charleston 
on December 20, i860. All the defenses of the harbor 



246 Highways and Byways of Florida 

fell into the hands of the state except Fort Sumter, 
which was the key to a seaport that was second only 
to New Orleans in the South. The government shipped 
supplies to the fort early in January, but as the vessel 
entered the harbor it was fired on from shore batteries 
and compelled to turn back. These were the first shots 
of the war. 

There was no essential change in the situation after- 
ward until April 12, when the Confederates began a 
bombardment before daylight. Soon fifty cannon were 
pouring their missiles into the fort. As the morning 
dawned thousands of the Charleston citizens gathered 
along the wharves to witness the spectacle. The fort 
returned the fire with vigor at first, but its walls were 
presently crumbling and the barracks on fire. Its in- 
mates, who numbered one hundred and twenty-eight 
men, rolled nearly a hundred barrels of powder into 
the sea to prevent explosions. So stifling was the air 
with smoke and dust that the defenders lay on their 
faces and breathed through wet cloths. Not a life 
was lost on either side during a bombardment of thirty- 
four hours, at the end of which time the fort surren- 
dered. 

For much of the remainder of the war the city was 
blockaded and shelled by a Union fleet. But it held 
out stoutly until Sherman's army approached in Febru- 
ary, 1865. Then, after its public buildings, stores, 
warehouses, and shipping had been fired by order of 
the Confederate commander, it was evacuated. 



Two Charming Cities 247 

While still blockaded, the Confederates devised a 
slender wooden vessel, the David, thirty-three feet long, 
propelled by steam, that carried a torpedo on a pole, 
forward. She would run awash, with her funnels and 
upper works slightly out of water. The flagship of the 
blockading fleet was torpedoed by her, but was crip- 
pled, not destroyed. After that the Union ships that 
were in the vicinity protected themselves with booms. 
This led to the construction of a submarine. In appear- 
ance it was something like a huge iron coffin, which was 
not inappropriate, for she proved a death-trap to suc- 
cessive crews on three trial trips. She was run by 
hand. Eight men crowded together turned a crank- 
shaft that operated her propeller. Finally, after re- 
peated sinkings, she was manned by a new crew and 
succeeded in destroying a United States man-of-war 
in the harbor, but she went down also, and every one 
In her perished. This was the first submarine to ac- 
tually torpedo a hostile war vessel. 

Since the war the greatest event in the history of the 
city is the destruction of half of it by an earthquake 
on the night of August 31, 1886, with a loss of five mil- 
lion dollars. "We thought the town was doomed to 
sink and be covered by the waters of the sea," was the 
comment made to me by one of the merchants, "and 
the niggers were certain the end of the world had come. 
They all stopped chicken stealing and went to pray- 

ing." 

As a shipping port the place handles large quantities 



248 Highways and Byways of Florida 

of cotton and rice, but its prosperity depends most of 
all on the trade in phosphate, large deposits of which 
underlie the region. But in the main the currents of 
industrial and commerical enterprise move gently, and 
the town retains all its ancient dignity and repose. 
It has been called the "aristocratic capital of the United 
States." Certainly the aspect of its homes conforms 
to that title. The eye delights in beholding the great 
cool-looking mansions with their broad verandas, and 
their snug little formal gardens and fine trees, and the 
marvelous profusion of flowers and vines. 

The town's most interesting historic building Is the 
Colonial Exchange erected in 1771. In it General 
Moultrie walled up one hundred thousand pounds of 
gunpowder which remained undiscovered during the 
three years that the British held the place. Patriot 
prisoners were confined in the basement. When Gen- 
eral Washington visited Charleston after the Revolu- 
tion, a ball and reception in his honor were held in the 
building. 

St. Philip's Church, which replaces one destroyed 
by fire In 1835, has a steeple nearly two hundred feet 
high, from which there shines a beacon light at night 
to guide mariners at sea. When the Civil War was being 
fought, its bells were melted and made into Confeder- 
ate cannon. 

The finest piece of colonial architecture in the South 
is St. Michael's Church, which was first opened for serv- 
ice in 1 76 1. It was given a coat of black paint in the 




In a Charleston alley 




A home entrance 



Two Charming Cities 249 

Revolution when the assaiUng British fleet was expected. 
The object was to make it a less conspicuous guide to 
the harbor. When the British gained possession of the 
town they stabled their horses in the church. It has 
a very musical chime of eight bells. Besides calling to 
worship, and sending forth their pealing notes on all 
occasions of public joy and sorrow, the bells rang a 
nightly curfew, which warned the negroes home at nine 
o'clock in winter, and ten in summer, and announced 
to white visitors that the time for leave-taking had 
come. In the Civil War, when the cannonballs from 
the blockading fleet began to strike the church, the 
bells were taken down and sent to Columbia, the capital 
of the State, for safe-keeping. The silver plate was 
sent thither at the same time. Bells and silver might 
better have remained In Charleston, for Columbia 
was looted and burned. A few pieces of the silver have 
been recovered. One was found in a New York pawn- 
shop, and another in a small Ohio town. The bells were 
so damaged that they were sent to England, where 
they were recast from the original patterns by the 
successors of the firm which had made them in 1764. 
When the ship that brought them back arrived, the 
people went in procession to receive the beloved bells, 
and with prayers and thanksgivings replaced them In 
the church tower. Their music, which is perhaps the 
most characteristic of all the city's sounds, has been 
called "the voice of Charleston." 
The city takes especial pride in the district around 



250 Highways and Byways of Florida 

"The Battery," which is a grassy park thickset with 
sturdy oaks. Here are several big cannon. They look 
ready for business, but they have long been obsolete, 
and now serve only for ornamental purposes and as 
mementos of a stirring past. Another reminder of the 
Civil War is Fort Sumter which you can see from the 
Battery far off across the bay on its tiny island. Back 
of the park are the finest residences of the place. The 
section is particularly well suited for wharves and ware- 
houses, but the city would never think of sacrificing 
the park, and the adjacent home owners have steadily 
refused to part with their holdings for commercial 
purposes. 

The residences bordering the Battery are modern 
and well cared-for, but at a little remove are others of 
great age and curious architecture. Some of these are 
dilapidated and falling to decay and look as if they 
could tell ghostly stories. The picturesqueness of the 
town is emphasized by the numerous trees that shadow 
the thoroughfares, and by the cobblestone paving that 
is still retained on many of the streets; and there are 
odd little alleys and secluded rookeries full of interest 
if you know how to find them. 

The negroes who make up so large a proportion of 
the population inhabit the shabby byways and out- 
skirts. Most of them live from hand to mouth. They 
get astonishingly minute quantities of groceries, and 
often they buy a one-cent stick of wood at a time. They 
really suffer a good deal in the chilly days of winter 



Two Charming Cities 251 

from lack of ability to purchase enough wood to keep 
themselves warm. For water supply they depend 
largely on the street hydrants, and the children are all 
the time going to these hydrants toting empty pails 
and cans and returning with them full. The colored 
people do quite a little trading with fish and vegetable 
peddlers, who hawk their wares from door to door. 
Some of the tradesmen carry their stocks in a basket 
on their heads, others push about small wagons. Their 
cries are for the most part strange and half articulated 
and are seldom intelligible to a stranger. I made out 
that one of the peddlers was calling, "Hyar's Cheap 
John come again — okra, cabbage, eggs, potatoes — hyar's 
Cheap John come again!" 

Once I spent an evening rambling about the old town. 
It was very gloomy. Even the main thoroughfares 
were dimly lighted, and the lesser ways were almost 
black. I passed through one street in the negro quarter 
where were many curious little shops — very rude, low- 
ceiled, and crowded. Some of them were illumined by 
a faint gas jet or two, others only by a kerosene lamp, 
and the dusky faces and uncouth figures of the peo- 
ple in the shops gave an effect rather uncanny and 
ogrelsh. 

Down on the wharves a steamer was unloading, and 
a swarm of colored laborers with much shouting and 
noise was hurrying the cargo out of the vessel's hold 
on to the pier. They worked with vigor and effective- 
ness, and I could not but admire their skill and energy. 



252 Highways and Byways of Florida 

Later, when they had finished, I came across them up 
in the town being paid off. They had gathered along 
the sidewalk curbing opposite a lighted doorway, and 
each man, as his name was called, stepped over to the 
door and received his money. Their clothing was sadly 
tattered, and sometimes the coins slipped through the 
recipients' pockets and had to be gathered up from the 
pavement. A number of women were in the crowd — 
most of them wives intent on seeing that their husbands 
did not make away with the money earned before they 
had a chance at it. One very watchful woman stationed 
near the door where the payments were made was the 
proprietor of a cookshop. A young fellow with a small 
account book was at her elbow assisting her to collect 
her dues. The coins, as they were surrendered, were 
received on a corner of a handkerchief laid across her 
palm, and in which she evidently intended later to tie 
them up. Another tradeswoman was a little old crea- 
ture carrying a tin platter of "groundnut cakes" — that 
is, peanut candy. This candy sold readily, and for some 
of the workers it served as a supper. The woman had 
a newspaper from which she allowed her customers to 
tear off a piece for use in wrapping their sweets. 

A policeman, who stood by to keep the sidewalk 
passably clear, informed me that nearly all of the colored 
workers' earnings would disappear that night, playing 
games of craps. Usually the player only staked five 
or ten cents on the throw of the two dice, but some- 
times risked a dollar, or, it may be, all he had. The 




(c) Detroit Publishing Co. 

The Atlantic beach on Tybee Island near Savannah 



Two Charming Cities 253 

policeman commented, "They would die, I reckon, 
if they couldn't play craps." 

Not far away was the public market — a broad low 
building a half mile long. Rude stalls lined the inter- 
minable central corrider on either side, stocked for the 
most part with meats or green groceries, but occasion- 
ally with fancy goods. One dealer who attracted my 
attention was a gray elderly man, fat and bushy-whis- 
kered, wearing a big apron, and having much the ap- 
pearance of an ancient cave dweller. His specialty was 
carving little trinkets from shells. Some stalls had 
white proprietors, some colored. The green groceries, 
in particular, were apt to have perched up among them 
a black old granny adorned with turban and earrings. 
Numerous customers were loitering through, haggling 
and buying. But though some of the stalls were very 
busy, others were very quiet. In one of the latter two 
men were leaning over a checkerboard, and a woman 
was looking on while business was entirely forgotten. 

The stranger who visits the market in the daytime 
is perhaps most impressed by the buzzards which hover 
around the roof and walk about in their ungainly way 
on the near paving. They nest off across the bay on 
the sea islands, but every morning they return in 
stately winged procession to the offal of the market- 
place. The buzzard is a native bird of the South with 
a marked individuality, and its presence in the neigh- 
borhood of the venerable market adds to the city's at- 
traction. Indeed, Charleston, in all its aspects has 



254 Highways and Byways of Florida 

notable interest, and every Northern visitor falls in 
love with it at first sight. 

Savannah, the first settlement in the state of Georgia, 
dates back to 1733, when General Oglethorpe arrived 
with about one hundred and thirty colonists. At that 
time were there more than a hundred offenses for which 
a person could be hanged in England, and the law was 
specially severe toward debtors. Oglethorpe's primary 
idea in founding a colony was to provide a means of 
freeing debtors from prison and giving them a fresh 
start in life. On the first day of February, in the year 
mentioned. Savannah consisted of four tents pitched 
under four pine trees near the edge of a bluff overlook- 
ing the river of the same name, eighteen miles from the 
Atlantic. 

The Savannah of to-day is one of the prettiest of 
Southern cities, with more well-kept parks than any 
other city in the world. There is a little public square 
at nearly every corner, and one of the wide streets has 
a double row of big trees running right down the mid- 
dle of it with grass under them; and there on the green 
lawn the little children can be seen playing even in 
midwinter. Originally the little parks were used as 
market-places and rallying points in case of Indian 
attack. The abundance of semi-tropical foliage and 
of airy spaces gives the city a very distinctive and 
charming quality. One of Savannah's popular year 
round seaside resorts is Tybee Island, and another is 
Thunderbolt, famous for fish and oysters. There is 



Two Charming Cities 255 

excellent quail shooting in the vicinity, and the 
creeks and marshes are populous with ducks in their 
season. 

William Jasper, whose exploit with the flag at Fort 
Moultrie made him known as the bravest of the brave, 
was in consequence given a roving commission, with 
the privilege of selecting such men as he pleased from 
his regiment to accompany him in his enterprises, and 
Savannah was more closely associated with his after 
life than any other place. While out on one of his ex- 
cursions his sympathies were aroused by the distress 
of a Mrs. Jones, whose husband, though an American 
by birth, was accused of being a deserter from the royal 
cause. Jones, who had been held a prisoner at a British 
camp in the northwestern part of the state, was being 
taken to Savannah to be hanged. Jasper and one com- 
panion concealed themselves in some thick bushes near 
a spring two and a half miles west of the city on the 
Augusta road. He was quite sure that the guard would 
halt there with the prisoners. In this conjecture he 
was right. When the party arrived only two men of 
the guard of eight remained to watch the prisoners. 
The others leaned their muskets against a tree and went 
to the Spring. Jasper and his comrade leaped from 
their concealment, seized two of the guns, shot the 
armed guards, and took possession of the remainder of 
the muskets. The other guards were helpless, and sur- 
rendered. The irons were knocked off the wrists of the 
prisoners, muskets were placed in their hands, and the 



256 Highways and Byways of Florida 

British were taken to the American camp. The spring 
is still there by the wayside just within the edge of a 
marshy tract of forest. It is the only spring of pure 
water in the vicinity and is much resorted to by passing 
travelers. 

At the very end of 1778 the British captured Charles- 
ton, and the next October the Americans were defeated 
in a determined effort to retake it. In this battle the 
gallant Jasper was killed while endeavoring to plant an 
American flag on a redoubt at Spring Hill, now the site 
of the Georgia Railway. 

The famous Revolutionary general, Nathanael 
Greene, a native of Rhode Island, moved, after the 
war, to Georgia. There, in recognition of his services, 
he was given an estate known as Mulberry Grove, 
not far up the river from Savannah. The former owner 
of the estate, a man named Graham, had a vault in 
Colonial Cemetery — now a city park that is very 
interesting with its old tombs and gravestones. Greene 
took over the vault with the property, and when he 
died was buried in it. After a while people forgot 
where his remains lay, and later, when Rhode Island 
decided to erect a monument to his memory in Savan- 
nah, the body of the general could not be found to 
put under it. However, this did not put a stop to the 
monument project. Lafayette laid the cornerstone 
when he visited Savannah in 1825. Greene's remains 
had been lost for more than a century when some one 
thought of opening the Graham vault in 1902. Then 



Two Charming Cities 257 

they were reinterred in their proper resting-place be- 
neath the monument which had so long awaited them. 

In Greene's house at Mulberry Grove the shrewd 
New England Yankee, Eli Whitney, invented his in- 
genious cotton-gin which made the whole South opu- 
lent. Whitney was a tutor in the Greene home after 
the general's death, and at Mrs. Greene's suggestion 
he attempted to contrive "a machine that would pick 
the seed out of cotton." His first machine, completed 
in 1793, did in five hours, work which, if done by hand, 
would take one man two years. It was an epoch- 
making Invention. 

The first steamship ever built In the United States 
was owned in Savannah, bore the name of the city, 
and in April, 18 19, sailed for England, where it arrived 
twenty-two days later. 

General Sherman's army captured Savannah in De- 
cember, 1864. It was then a place of twenty thousand 
people. 

An unusual attraction for tourists, five miles north- 
west on the Savannah River, Is "The Hermitage," a 
plantation of the ante-bellum days, where the old man- 
sion and slave dwellings may be inspected. 

But the one thing that every stranger goes to see as 
a matter of course is the ancient and picturesque estate 
of Bonaventure, four miles east of the city, which for 
a long time has been used as a cemetery. Here are 
solemn avenues of gigantic live oaks with their ever- 
green leafage, and their guarled branches feathered 



258 Highways and Byways of Florida 

with ferns and parasitic plants, and draped with pend- 
ant swaying masses of gray fairy-like moss. The effect 
is singularly weird in its charm, and the tombs, urns, 
and obelisks gleaming here and there among the shad- 
ows add to the impressiveness. The streamers of moss 
are four or five feet long, and the whole place seems to 
be dripping with them. One youthful visitor has said 
that it looked as if this was a graveyard for old long- 
bearded men, and that their beards were all hung in 
the trees before they were buried. An older visitor has 
said, "So beautiful is nature in the grand old forest 
graveyard that almost any sensible person would choose 
to dwell here with the dead rather than with the lazy 
disorderly living." 

One of the most curious incidents connected with 
Bonaventure occurred in the autumn of 1867. John 
Muir, the well-known naturalist, was making a long 
walking tour from Indiana to Florida. He expected, 
when he arrived at Savannah, to find at the post-office 
funds he had ordered sent to him to enable him to con- 
tinue his journey. The money was delayed until the 
following week. After spending the first night at the 
meanest looking lodging-house he could discover, on 
account of its cheapness, the amount in his purse was 
reduced to about a dollar and a half. During the day 
he visited Bonaventure. Only a small plot was occupied 
by graves, and the mansion of the former owner of the 
domain was there in ruins. Never before had Muir 
seen so impressive a company of trees as the moss- 



Two Charming Cities 259 

draped oaks. There were thousands of smaller trees 
and clustered bushes. The place was half surrounded 
by salt marshes, and among the trees along the side 
of the marshes many bald eagles roosted. 

Toward night, when Muir was again in the town, it 
occurred to him that the graveyard was an ideal place 
for a penniless wanderer to sleep. Thither he went, and 
entered the weird and beautiful abode of the dead in 
the silent hour of the gloaming. Though tired, he 
sauntered a while enchanted, then lay down under one 
of the great oaks. He found a little mound that served 
for a pillow, and he rested fairly well in spite of certain 
large prickly-footed beetles that crept across his hands 
and face, and a lot of hungry stinging mosquitoes. 

When he awoke, the sun was up. He heard the 
screaming of the bald eagles, and of some strange waders 
in the rushes, and the noise of crows, and the songs of 
countless warblers hidden deep in their leafy-bowered 
dwellings. He heard too the hum of Savannah with 
the long halloos of negroes far away. On rising he found 
that his head had been resting on a grave. His sleep 
had not been quite as sound as that of the person below, 
but he got up refreshed. The morning sunbeams poured 
through the oaks dripping with dew, and the beauty 
displayed gave him such delight that hunger and care 
seemed only a dream. 

Later in the day he chose a spot in a dense thicket 
of sparkleberry bushes near the bank of the river and 
prepared a nest with a roof to keep off the dew. Four 



26o Highways and Byways of Florida 

of the bushes served as corner posts for his httle hut, 
which was about five feet long by three wide. He tied 
branches across from forks in the bushes to support a 
roof of rushes, and spread a thick mattress of long 
moss over the ground for a bed. 

Each day he visited Savannah to Inquire for the ex- 
pected funds, and each night returned to his grave- 
yard hut after dark that he might not be observed and 
suspected. One night, as he lay down in his moss nest, 
he felt some cold-blooded creature — whether a snake 
or a frog or a toad he did not know — and he hastily 
grasped It and threw it over the tops of the bushes. 

All the time his money was diminishing, and he tried 
unsuccessfully to get work. He was becoming seriously 
hungry, and was giddy as he walked when, after five 
days of graveyard life, the funds came. Scarcely had 
he left the post-office with his cash when he met a very 
large negro woman with a tray of gingerbread, and 
promptly bought some of it. He munched it as he 
walked along, then found an eating-place and had a 
generous regular meal on top of the gingerbread. 

Most of us would hardly care to repeat the young 
naturalist's experiences at Bonaventure, and yet ad- 
ventures, if not too strenuous, always add zest to the 
tourist's enjoyment, especially In the backlook. 



Index 



Alligators, 49, 63, 67, 74, 88, 137, 

144, 178, 179, 185, 191, 237 
Anastasia Island, 26, 30, 4.7 
Anclote River, 137 
Apalachicola River, 108, 197 
Audubon, 181 

Bananas, pj, 98, 206 

Bartram, John, 176 

Bears, 58, 64, 80, 95, 146, 164, 179 

Big Cypress Swamp, 162, 173, 239 

" Big Freeze," 207 

Billy Bowlegs, 169 

Biscayne Bay, 88 

Blue Spring, 70 

Bulowville, 182 

Burroughs, John, 195 

Caloosahatchee River, 122, 167 

Camphor trees, 64 

Cape Canaveral, 26 

Cattle, 58, 59, 195, 216 

Cedar Keys, 135, 136, 194 

Centipedes, 232 

Charleston, 37, 242 

'Charleston Earthquake, 117, 247 

Charlie Apopka Creek, 122 

Charlotte Harbor, 142 

Choctawhatchee Bay, 105 

Cigar making, 198 

Civil War, 40, 54, 77, 85, 97, 102, 

109, 119, 139, 144, 24s, 257 
Qay Spring, 123 



Coacoochee — See "Wild Cat" 
Coquina, 32, 35, 42, 48 
Coral, 89 

Cormorants, 82, 186 
Cows — See Cattle 
"Crackers," 131 
Crops, 58, 130 
Crocodiles, 240 
Cypress, 65, 222 

Daytona, 74 

Deer, 58, 80, 95, 138, 146, 164, 177, 

180, 233 
Devils Mill Hopper, 123 
De Soto, 3 

Drake, Sir Francis, 29 
Drum fish, 83 

Dry Tortugas — See Tortugas 
Ducks, 64, 82, 138 
Dunnellon, 71, 124 

Eagles, 66 

Everglades, 50, 86, 88, 160, i6i 

Fernandina, 189 

Fish, 51, 58, 64, 81, 82, 84, 94, 99, 

III, 143, 182, 198 
Flowers, 2, 59, 113, 116, 163, 190, 

20Q 
Fort Brooke (Tampa), 138, 154, 

156 
Fort Caroline, 21, 24, 29 
Fort King (Ocala), 152, 156 



261 



262 



Index 



Fort Marion — See Fort San Marco 

Fort Myers, 143, 168 

Fort San Marco, 31, 55 

Frosts, 62, 127, 130, 177, 178, 206 

Fruit, 59, 93, 12s, 129 

Gainesville, 123, 192 
Grapefruit, 125, 128 
Green Cove Springs, 63 
Gulf Stream, 84, 85, 89, 201 

Halifax River, /j, 182 
Hammocks, 78 
Hawk Channel, 89, 96 
Hawkins, Sir John, 21 
Herons, 66, 186, 228 
Hillsboro River, 77 
Hogs, 58 
Homosassa, 136 

Indian River, 51, 78, 229 
Indigo, 75 

Jackson, Andrew ("Old Hickory"), 

52, 108, 109, 149, 154 
Jacksonville, 5/, 56, 201 
Jupiter Inlet, 78, 85 

Key Largo, 93, 95 
Key West, 8q, 239 
Kissimmee River, 122 

Labelle, 168 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 115 

Lake City, 53 

Lake District, 121 

Lake George, 176 

Lake Jackson, 117 



Lakeland, 124 

Lake Newmans, 123 

Lake Okechobee, 122, 157, 168 

Lake Tuscawilla, 123 

Lake Woodruff, 185 

Lake Worth, 85 

Live Oaks, 116, 221 

Long Key, 94, 96 

Long Moss Spring, 118 

Magnolias, 192, 221 
Mahogany trees, 93 
Malabar, 229 
Manatee, 142 
Manatee (Sea Cow), 83 
Mandarin, 60 

Mangroves, 79, loi, 144, 14S 
Matanzas Inlet, 26, 49, 73, 76 
Menendez, Pedro, 22, 29 
Merritts Island, 83 
Miami, 87 
Miami River, 167 
Micanopy, 123 
Miccosukee, 149 
Mocking-birds, 116 
Mosquitoes, 94, 164, 180, 232 
Mosquitoes, "Blind," 186 
Mosquito Inlet, 73, 74 
Mount Pleasant, 196 
Muir, John, 189, 258 
Murat, Prince, 114 

Narvaez, de, 6, 103 
New River, 167 
New Smyrna, 74 

Ocala, 70, 124, 152 
Ocklawaha River, 64, 150 



Index 



263 



Oglethorpe, General, 32, 254 

Olustee, 55 

Orange Park, 61 

Oranges, 62, 67, 83, 725, 129, 198, 

207 
Oranges, Wild, 127, 185 
Ormond, 73 

Osceola, 37, 75/, 153, 245 
Oysters, 73, 74, 81, 93, 146 

Palatka, 50, 57, dj 

Palmettoes, 84, 180, 190, 193, 2ig 

Palmetto scrub, 184, 2iy 

Palm Beach, 85 

Palms, 86, 93, 98 

Panasopher Hammock, 126 

Peace Creek, 124, 152 

Pelican Island, 230 

Pelicans, 82, 186, 195, 228 

Pensacola, 17, 7o(5, 197 

Phosphate, 124 

Picolata, 45 

Pineapples, 80, 92 

Pines, 212 

Pirates, 31, 34, 92, i6i, 242 

Pithlachacootee River, 188 

Ponce de Leon, 7, loi 

Rainy season, 202 
Red bugs, 232 
Ribaut, Jean, 20, 22 
Rockledge, 84 

Saint Augustine, 20, 23, "j^i, 156, 159, 
177, 178, 180, 188, 197, 205 

Saint Johns BlufF, 21 

Saint Johns River, 20, 22, 45, 50, 
72, 176, 186 



Saint Lucie River, 83, 84 

Saint Marks, 119 

Saint Marks Bay, 104 

Saint Petersburg, 140 

Sand Key, loi 

Sanford, 50, 64. 

Santa Rosa Inlet, 105 

Sarasota, 142 

Savannah, 254 

Saw grass, 163 

Saw Grass Lake, 50 

Saw Palmetto — See Palmetto Scrub 

Scorpions, 232 

Sea-going railway, 95 

Seminoles, 88, 14.8, 186, 240 

Seminole War, 122 

Shark River, 166 

Shell mounds, 58, 70, 73, 75, 81, 

138, 7JP, 181 
Silver Springs, 69 
Snakes, 164, 181, 2jj, 239 
Spanish bayonet, 43, 7J5 
Spanish moss, 184, 222 
Sponges, 700, 137 
Spring Garden Creek, 185 
Springs, 1,49, dl, 69, 88, 117, 122, 

136, 178, 179, 185 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 60 
Summer, 72, 135, 207, 202 
Suwannee River, 120 

Tallahassee, 16, 52, 777 

Tampa, 4, 1^8, 156, 160 

Tarpon, 136, 7^7, 142 

Tarpon Springs, 136 

Tecoi, 46 

Ten Thousand Islands, 143 

Thompson, General Wiley, 152, 153 



■<i" 



^ 



O, .<' </ f 



264 



Index 



Titusville, 83 

Tobacco, 22 

Tomoka River, 39, 7^ 

Tortugas, loi, 188 

Trees, "]•], 93, 98, 112, 126, 220 

Trouble Creek, 138 

Turkeys (Wild), 58, 64, 80, 95, 138, 

177, 180, 22y 
Turpentine, 214 
Turtles, 66, 80, 84, 88, 99, 102, 

188, 234. 

Wahoo Swamp, 154, 155 
Wakulla Spring, 117 



Wakulla Volcano, 118 

Water Hyacinth, 59 

Water turkies, 231 

West Palm Beach, 169 

Whip-poor-wills, 227 

Whitewater Bay, 166 

"Wild Cat," J7, 155, 159, 160 

Winter, 72, 82, iii, 129, 135, 183, 

195, 201 
Winter Park, 123 
Withlacoochee River, 154 
Wolves, 179 
Worth, General, 159, 
Wreckers, gi, 188 



Printed in the United States of America 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 499 030 4 




